Interesting article. Two semi-serious comments:

- has anyone ever tried to kill a plagued citizen with troops? I suspect this happens in life and the movies (I remember a scene in the classic "Things to Come", and another in the not-so-classic "Outbreak").

- If Hannibal had elephants, wonder why Ramses didn't have the hippos?

When I tried to tame some hippos, they kept eating the mahouts. After a while, no one would go near the marshes, and I had to import papyrus.

Hi Ilion,
was just ready for sending saves to Civilis but Hotmail is out for the moment.
Had to check the dictionnary for "mahout". Ts, ts, Ilion, not these ones, these are the ones with long ears. No, the beasts, not the mahouts.

Well, eventually expecting we can understand sth in fighting...

TryHard:

Interesting post and I've always been interested in these tables and the agressive side of Pharaoh. Here is my theory what the table values mean based on my experience:

Type - Used to distinguish category of fighting unit. This can be used to indicate what units will or will not meet in combat.

Hit Points – This is often mistaken as the offensive impact of a unit. But it is really how many "Hits" a unit can take from a sword, arrow, or Javelin before it expires. Thus you can see a transport with 75 hit points but no attack values.

Attack Value - Amount of damage in close proximity a unit can inflict on an opponent. Example would be damage from a sword, or running over from a chariot.

Armor Value - Amount of defense against the "Attack Value". Thus an "Attack Value" is not always 100% effective against a unit. This value probably decreases as the unit takes on more hits.

Armor vs Missiles - Same as Armor Value but with missles.

Missile Attack - Amount of damage a missle can inflict on an opponent.

Missile Range - Distance in some type of units a missile will carry. Note javelin and archer 20% more than chariot and warship.

Missile rate of fire - Self explanatory.

Speed - Speed of the unit. Note your archer can out run a Hippo (only saving grace).

Frequency - Not sure what it is but if I had to guess I would say it is similiar to the "Rate of Fire" but with close proximity weapons(sword, knife, chariot). Thus in a close proximity fight an infantryman would be striking every 60 ticks, an archer every 40 ticks. Warships and chariots with a frequency of 0 would indicate a continous damage on impact such as being run over with a chariot or rammed by a warship. My best guess, but it would be interesting to know what it really is.

It is hard to say how the above numbers change as a unit gains more experience through combat. I would guess the "Hit Points" increases indicating it is harder to kill off a more experience unit, and I would guess the attack values and missile attack values would increase indicating a more experience unit is more likely to strike a blow then an inexperience unit. Armor, rate of fire, frequency should not change base on the units experience.

The tables do tell a tale:

For example if you match your infantry head on with the Roman infantry you will never succeed as the Romans are superior in almost all categories. This is also true for chariots. The game creators made sure you could not succeed if you matched 1 to 1 against the superior enemies. The only way to succeed is to have superior numbers (not always true especially at "Hard" or "Very Hard" levels) or mix your defenses with walls and towers.

Infantry is quite effective against Hippos as the number of "Hit Points" of a Hippo is relatively low. But the Hippo's defense against archer missles is very high, rendering the archer almost useless against the hippo.

Using the tables, the Plague walker does not have any combat value. But if I remember correctly the woodsman does have an attack value.

Interesting post and my twist on the tables

Would like to see what others think.

Good gaming,
Vriesea
Lagos, Nigeria

Hi Vriesea,
we were of course expecting your comments here. I compile here some others dispatched around
- "We" would be the egyptian army, says Civilis (54...)
- Pharaoh's army would be an Egyptian army, just with a higher level of experience (Civilis)
-Frequency figures look impressive but could be percentages rather than indexes, so eventually same meaning.

-Fights could be played like in Role playing games:
A Roman 1. Swordsmen,Infantry,3,150,14,7,7,0,0,0,4,60,0,0,0,0
fights against 2. Egyptian Infantry, 3,150,12,5,6,0,0,0,5,60,0,0,0,0
First one to strike is the one with higher Speed or Frequency.
Egyptian rolls a 12 sided-die, gets say 10, minus 7 (Rom. armour), Roman soldier loses 3 points (never less than 0), he has 147 left.
Roman rolls a 14 sided-die, gets 10, minus 5, Eg. remains with 145. Etc., etc.
I think this is the trend but not the whole truth. There could be decisive hits (otherwise a javelin could never kill an invader at first shot -20 dammage- but it happens)

On the other hand, it would explain my most successful tactics: waiting around the invasion point with infantries set at 3. Several legionnaires would strike at first opponent then second, etc. If the ennemy does not have the capacity to deploy, every first-coming-enemy is hit by 3 or 4 of mine (never the 6 of them altogether, when you check the morale and fighting skills changes during the fights). Meanwhile, only one of my companies (2 at most) is targetted by the enemies, its role and morale drops sharply when others' remain consistent, at least for a while. This is better justified knowing that the single better placement of your companies around invasion point (a question of one tile) changes the same fight from "painful" to "An enemy? I did not notice"

-Lower level fighters (policemen) would have an effect mainly through morale, that would weaken some parameters (if not all).
-Archers attack on the ground at 4, withdraw potentially points 3 by 3, altogether nothing.
-Archers/missile attack is below hippo's defence, but javelin just above hippo. As the hippo has few HP, it is not easy to touch it but it would be killed instantaneously.
-a drop in morale would be equivalent to a drop in experience, but temporary; on the opposite, when a company sees it is crushing the ennemy, its morales shoots up, it does it even better.
-gaining a month (or half a month) before your soldiers are engaged into fight has tremendous consequences on the morale consistence of your troops.
-I think perhaps, more than the dammage they cause, missiles have enormous effects on the enemy's morale through keeping it "at fight" permanently. Obviously, Bedouins were very happy to run after my archers for 6 months, only the succession of mild fights eventually discouraged them.
-I have seen a radical change in speed of some invaders, this would so change with experience gain. Escaping around with my archers with invaders running after them to get them tired is eventually successful, but it seems that every time they run faster than last archer and crucify him, they gain experience.

-I think that I faced so much trouble at V.hard at Dunqul compared with Cartouche Bee though I had far better troops (6 infantries, 5 experts, 1 veteran; Seth best blessing) because the enemy's role was high. Last invaders were fresh troops while my guys had been engaged into fight for one or two months already, so last of them were encountering diminished companies. At Dunqul, having one or two archers companies and policemen would keep the invader under pressure permanently. Kushites are not hard fighters.

If you move the police stations further from the invasion point, they are less concentrated upon the enemy (enemy advances in a row, a bunch of policemen jump on them). The ennemy has some more time to deploy and the nature of the fight changes a lot (2 policemen per Kushite, instead of 15 for first one, then second, etc.)

Last one: maybe number of casualties within a company (any) has more effect on morale that the global loss of Hit points.

Tryhard

See if you cqn breqk this code:

I q, currently in Brussels on ,y zqy to Cqliforniq: I zill stqy there for 2 zeeks then heqd bqck to Nigeriq:

Liked your post it shozs thqt you reqlly pqy q lot of qttention to the gq,e:

Couple of thoughts betzeen flights:

Still not too sure of your theory: I think there is probqbly not q 12 or 14 sided die: I think it is probqbly q zin or loose qnd then you get qttaqcking points ,inus the qr,or vqlue of the opponent:

Freauency vqlues still pu<Hqve only used your strqtegy of fighting qt the invqsion point very infreauently: I see, to enjoy fighting in the open zhere I cqn see the big picture: But I do qgree it does see, to be auite effective:

I hqve not noticed qn increqse in speed of ,y troops qs the fighting goes on: Could it be thqt zith fezer troops to be ,oved the co,puter just is ,ore efficient:

Zell; ,y flight is qls,ost here:

Hope your stqy in Ugqndq is enjoyqbler qs ,yu stqy in Nigeriq:

Good gq,ing;
Vrieseq

Tryhard:

You and I might have crossed paths. I was also on Sabena in Brussels. My flight from Lagos came in around 6:00AM, and I departed around 10:30 AM. Stopped and used the time to respond to your message on one of those strange keyboards in Belgium.

Were you the one typing furiously beside me?

Good gaming,
Vriesea

Hi Vriesea,
what you call a "strange Belgian keyboard" is what we call a keyboard. The ones you use normally are called by us "funny cooking tool AngloSaxon aborigenous tribes use to exorcise a computer".
No, we have not met because I did not even reach Brussels, I wrote from Gatwick, where I should never have been! But, of course, my luggage went through Brussels. I finally got back my underwear after 3 days in Kampala, still expecting some other stuff. Yesterday, 30 people coming had lost their luggage with SABENA. This company is such a mess, I would bet biggest shareholder is Bill gates.

So I had some problems to read your message but I caught most of it (I hope). My Role-playing theory about fights and dice seem the most fit for software design, some randomness and what I think I could check (but, checking to verify it, my vision was of course biased).

Ground fights are nice when you know you can handle them. When you see than another enemy column enters the map to fight against your 2 survivors, it is just too late...

Tryhard
Kampala - Uganda

Hi,
using an old thread for one comment: in my scenario there are many woods. It allowed me to check that the towers and archers do not fight in the woods. Moreover, the enemy tends to follow the woods and avoid cleared areas.

Hi all,
I have been wondering for a while how the Troop requests work, meaning how many soldiers do you have to send when say 16 troops are required.

My current guess is that the role is based on your troop's Attack plus Defence values, then this is compared to the Attack plus Defence value of the corresponding role for the enemy's archers.

One example: at V.Hard, if the requirement is 6 with a Nubian enemy, if you send 6 archers, 2 come back. If you send seven, four come back.

I will create a scenario just to check some value, but do not think I will go through the whole statistics.

Surprise,
I was wrong but there is not the surprise. I made a scenario to check out the parameters of the troop requests. You will get more and more figures with time but the parameters are:
I built a block of houses with the minimum requirements, then I got a gift of 32 weapons and 32 chariots. In December, I am asked to send an army for a far away battle, request is for 16 troops in December, you have two months. So I played on the following parameters:
- archers, infantry or chariots
- with/without academy and Seth Temple Complex, both of which add one level of morale and experience
- the role sent
- the identity of the enemy, to get statistical figures and possibly a mathematic formula.

First big surprise is that the same rule applies if your enemy is the Cannanite - one of the weakest, the Persian, or the Hyksos - the strongest.

Second surprise is that is seems the same rule applies to infantry and archers, but I have not been far enough in there. Of course, the chariots perform better than the others.

Of course, with the academy and/or the Temple Complex, the experience of your troops increases and you need to send less soldiers for the same result.

Another surprise is that, when I add the Temple Complex and the Academy, both the Desirability and the employment rate of the block increase, of course. But the people get annoyed much sooner with the still high unemployment rate (around 30%). People start to leave as soon as July of the first year while, with an employment rate of 80% without these facilities, the people start leaving only in January of the following year.

[This message has been edited by Tryhard (edited 01-27-2002 @ 12:25 PM).]

Here are the data.

1. If I send them on January or in February, I get the same results=casualties

2. Results were absolutely identical having the Persians or the Hyksos as enemies.
Hyksos infantry is 225,18; archers are 150,6; chariots are 262,20
Persian infantry is 200,16; archers are 135,6; no chariots
So I made a try with some of the weakest ones:
Canaanite infantry is 120,7; archers are 120,6; no chariots
I also got the same results.

3. It takes some half a month more to get 16 chariots, compared with 16 archers.

4. Comparative study
(number sent, number back)
+ separates the soldiers from two companies

Experience level 1
Archers (14,0) (15,0) (16,5) (17, 5+1) (18, 8+1) (19, 8+2) (20,8+2) (21,8+3)
Infantry (14,0) (15,0) (16,5)
Chariots (8,3) (9,5) (10,5) (11,9) (12,9) (13,10) (14,11) (15,12) (16,14)

Experience level 2: Academy
Archers (12,0) (13,4) (14,5) (15,8) (16,8) (17, 8+1) (18, 12+2) (19, 12+3) (20,12+3) (21,12+4)
Infantry (12,0) (14,5) (16,8)

Experience level 3: Academy+ Seth Temple Complex
Archers (11,0) (12,4) (13,4) (14,7) (15,8) (16,8) (17,12+1) (18,12+2)
Chariots (8,4) (10,8) (12,9) (14,12) (16,14)

Conclusion: though I have not yet been through the whole study, it seems to appear that sending infantry or archers generates the same results. On the opposite, chariots are much more efficient. The experience level generates a bonus, as expected, but not a clear multiplicative factor, and not as important as one could have hoped. This follows the trend seen in combat: the experience gain is very helpful but seems rarely a decisive factor.

-request bug: many of you may have seen it already in classic games: sometimes you are given two months to send the troops, sometimes 1 month but, in this last case, after one month you are still given another month, for the same fate.

I also wanted to compare the casualties between troops sent on time and troops sent with some delay, but could not cause the delay. The request was simply abandoned.

Hi Tryhard,

This is very interesting, to say the least.

When we did CBC Encampment Contest last Fall, experience level was the key factor in the results, to prevent losses. It did seem that in that game, that the infantry did make a difference over archers but that was a while ago. They withdrew the hard version cause of a bug that prevented a win but the hard version had some classic struggles going on. Did you ever try them? They were right up your alley.

Cheers,

CB

Hi Cartouche Bee,
'was just telling my girlfriend (next wife?) in our cybercafe: hey, this is Cartouche Bee, he is my best friend, from Canada...

Tomorrow, I will check out with a 32 request, 6 months later, and will go deeper into the difference between infantry and archers, as whatever the current experience has shown, I think there is a difference between them.

If you feel depressive, have a try at Nightmare Nekhen, it will show you that Pharaoh is worse off than you...

Some more data that will add little but confirm the former findings

Request is 24, some months later
(Soldiers sent, soldiers back)
+ separates the soldiers from the 2 distinct companies
Experience level 1
Archers (23,0) (24,5+3) (25,5+3) (26,5+3) (27,8+6) (28,8+6) (29,8+7) (30,8+7)

Experience level 3: Academy+ Seth Temple Complex
Archers (19,5+1) (20,5+2) (21,8+3) (22,8+3) (23,8+4) (24,8+4) (25,12+7) (26,12+8) (27,12+9) (28,12+9) (29,12+10) (30,12+11)

Results for archers and infantry or mixed groups of those were absolutely identical.

I found something else interesting in the Seth TC + Academy case. At 7 soldiers, the company reaches the experience level 3, morale identical when the soldiers are sent. So there should be a neat gap in performance between the 22 and 23 role sent. It is not the case. My interpretation is that maybe, like Desirability as shown in the overseer and as PDC users know it, the incrementation of the experience of the company is rather linear, but the display is simplified. On the other hand, you can see the figures jump sometimes (21, 25) like if the operation was based on a kind of Gauss curve.

Now we carry on with the surprises. I made the run with the chariots, here are the results:
Experience level 1
Chariots (14,7) (18,12+2) (20,12+3) (22,12+5) (23,12+6) (24,14+7) (25,14+8) (26,14+9) (27,14+10) (28,14+11)

Experience level 3: Academy+ Seth Temple Complex
Chariots (14,11) (18,12+2) (20,12+3) (22,14+6) (24,14+7) (26,14+9)

So you can see that, on most figures, there is strictly no difference in sending a level-3 contingent and a level-1. This means that the advantage you gain in sending chariots is compensated by a lower consideration of the experience gain.

I also made another experiment, leaving one fort at 14 then building the other fort. So, in the previous example 24=16+8, 28=16+12. In this one, 24=14+10, 28=14+14.
Experience level 3: Academy+ Seth Temple Complex
Chariots (18,11+3) (20,11+5) (22,11+6) (24,12+9) (25,12+10) (26,12+11) (28,12+12).
In most cases but not all, the role coming back is the same, only its repartition between the 2 companies differ. I think this is a very useful finding as I, and sure you too, was often wondering if it would be good to send my new company of 2 soldiers with my complete 16-big company. Definitely, it is useful.

Conclusion: I am very happy to have spent some time on these experiments as I am pretty astonished with the results and bet many of you will be too.

Yo, Tryhard,

I've got Nightmare but my Kingdom Rating starts at 40 and not 6 as your intro states.

Can you confirm, I don't want too easy of a start and then have you change the rules.

CB

Shame on you, you said you moved back to Africa for work and it turns out to be for love. That's a much better reason.

Hi C B,
Nightmare Nekhen starts at 40 but you normally get bad news within one month... The game uploaded is the one I played myself, but please tell me if does not happen. I will add that I played all the uploaded games until completion, and really enjoyed this one. I am now on a funny one, but which needs lots of work from my side to give accurate goals: Nano Nekhen is a ridiculously small map where you have to build two small obelisks, one small pyramid, one or two PE, knowing that you get only raw materials, so you need all industries, and that the third kind of food comes from farms that can be set only right in the middle of the map.

BTW Love is a colateral damage of today's life here.
I am now running tests on the requests sending the same role by sea. As expected, the same role generated the same results. Now I am adding one warship; with some runs, I could check that it did not change anything when the role was high (24 to 28) but it does when the role is small (14, 12 back) when only 7 back without the warship. I would like to be able to tell you more or less the soldiers-equivalent value of one warship.

[This message has been edited by Tryhard (edited 01-30-2002 @ 03:01 AM).]

For those who are definitely interested in fighting and have been following this thread, I will carry on the troop request requirements, but at V.Hard only.

If someone is interested in contributing with some of his/her time to the general knowledge about Pharaoh, meaning doing the same at another level, or with other ideas, I can upload as a miscellaneous the basic scenario that allows to check the data. You then will have to change only the parameter you want to check:
- date of request
- type of request
- level, etc.

New surprises,
I could check that the warships are incredibly powerful.
Request is 48. Still V.Hard
One warship does noes come back
Out of 2, one comes back
Three come back all.
The warship soldiers-equivalent must be around 36-40. This means that, in most Pharaoh classic games, warships will all make it.

On top of that, if in the former situation, you send 6 warships and 2 chariot companies, you still have some casualties amongst your troops, however 2 warships alone would have make it.

Some more information
Name of the request (coming from the French version):
1-45: “a modest army will…”
46-89: “an army…”
90-800: “a consequent army…”

Now I played on big roles we often see in edited scenarios. I have 6 warships (WS) and 1 veteran chariots (char) company (CHAR).

Request is 60:
-1 WS does not come back
-2 WS: 1 is out, 1 comes back in good condition
-1 WS + CHAR, the WS comes back in Medium condition, 8 char back

Request is 90:
-2 WS do not come back
-3 WS: they come back, one is Resistant
-1 WS + CHAR: all out
-2 WS + CHAR, 5 char back, 1 WS good, 1 WS perfect

Request is 120:
-6 WS: 1 out, 1 medium
-5 WS: 2 out, 1 medium
-4 WS: 2 out, 1 correct
-3 WS: all out

It confirms that the soldiers-equivalent value of one Warship is sth between 31 and 39, and I assume 35 is a close figure. This at V.Hard, is it the same at Normal level or can we bet on 40? Up to you to check…

The whole above also shows what long term players already witnessed. When you send enough troops, you have some casualties, adding many more troops adds some more casualties in every company for little benefit. It also shows that ground troops sent on a maritime request are likely to suffer huge casualties for what Warships would do easily for little damage.

Eventually, it also shows that in most classical games where there are requests but no invasion (Dashur, Hetep, etc.), we do not need to build forts like crazy and work like mads to get the experience increasing.

I will summarize here some results of this study:
-1 soldier requested is an archer/infantry equivalent
-sending archers and infantry generates the same results, this does not change as their respective levels increase.
-Chariots are much more powerful abroad than former 2, but the gain with experience generates less benefits than for former 2.
-On requests, whatever the enemy generates the same results
-1 warship is worth more than 2 companies of archers
-experience gain is critically important when the role sent is close to the role expected, above it changes little

(edit some hours later)
As everybody seems here playing instead of working, ts, ts, ts, I made the tries at other levels. Another big surprise!
The results for all requests shown in this post above are IDENTICAL at V.EASY, NORMAL and V.HARD.

[This message has been edited by Tryhard (edited 02-03-2002 @ 11:11 AM).]

In order to use the Hittites as enemies, I needed to know the repartition of the troops. This is an idea about it. Please note that, at V.Hard, some soldiers are always –incrementally- added to the role attacking.
Global number set in the scenario – chariots, infantry, archers attacking
6 – 2,4,1
8 – 3,5,1
10 – 4,6,2
12 – 5,7,2
14 – 6,7,3
16 – 9,7,3
18 – 9,8,4
20 – 9,10,4
22 – 10,11,5

Re post 8:
Sabena went broke in November.

Just had to say this

Hi I wonder if you could tell me which is the weakest army and which is the oone you most like please.

Thank you, Minnakht

The best way to see who they are is to click on the file figure_model in the Pharaoh directory and go through the list. The Canaanites are really weak. When you consider infantry, the Nubians are really tough guys, no that strong but very mobile and aggressive.