The worst shatter - ever

[jasonbroomer]

This just happened in one of my Soviet games

Shatter.png (1.4 MiB) Viewed 926 times

Attacked with Roms at less than 1:1 CV into a fortified level 3 city location with the battle commanded by a mediocre leader. No pioneers used and only one artillery SU. He even only modestly out numbered me.

Naturally Odessa was not isolated at time of the battle

Crazy decisions can seem to be rewarded in this game from time to time!

[RedJohn]

Absolutely seems like a bug, and a fairly massive one at that. I know you're able to shatter units that rout on combat ready units in a subsequent battle, but it looks like the entire combat for that battles was messed up.

I guess maybe an interaction between city forts and routed units?

[jasonbroomer]

I doubt it is a bug, I was sheltering a load of dross from the Southern front there. A lot of unready units etc.

Even so, I think I must have been very unlucky

[Veterin]

I doubt it is a bug, I was sheltering a load of dross from the Southern front there. A lot of unready units etc.

Even so, I think I must have been very unlucky

Isn't the shattering check unit specific rather than entire stack though? I've seen plenty of battles where only some of the units shatter and others retreat/rout

[jasonbroomer]

Ah, that makes sense. 3 or 4 units did get away, not much was left in them though!

[PeteJC]

Shouldn't there be an attacking penalty due to the command capacity being at 22 for that corps or does that not have an effect on combat?

[K62]

Unready units + high intensity combat (port) + poor Soviet leader = the perfect storm.

Shatters and bad routs require a number of failed checks by the defending leader; the quality of the attacking leader matters much less.

If planning to defend Odessa, Smolensk etc. I would try to have a leader in charge with values of 5+ on all relevant stats.

[MarkShot]

Dice rolls do play a play a big role in this system. (no, I am not making a witty phonetic pun)

A lot of people misunderstand how probability works in the sense that statistical outcomes present themselves over large sample sizes. But for the single case, the improbable can and will happen. It may have happened here.

A lot of war gamers don't like RNG. I love it, because it is reality. There is this psychological bias/desire in the wargamer community to believe that the outcome/survival of conflict are the result of skill and expertise. Of course, RNG throws in a big monkey wrench. You can have 10 years of elite training, but if you are standing where a shell lands, your odds are the same as the guy who was kidnapped off the street yesterday and they put a rifle in his hand this morning. The shell does not know or care.

I am favor of RNG being realistic, and also as means to counter a false bias among the public that events are in their control or the control of so called leaders. The gods of RNG love f**k**g with mortals.

PS: I don't believe GG is making a philosophical statement with his game design. Rather I think it is a board game legacy, and the fact an RNG model of this scale will run on current hardware, but an agent/physics model would just melt chips while you wait hours for a battle to resolve.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

Dice rolls do play a play a big role in this system. (no, I am not making a witty phonetic pun)

A lot of people misunderstand how probability works in the sense that statistical outcomes present themselves over large sample sizes. But for the single case, the improbable can and will happen. It may have happened here.

A lot of war gamers don't like RNG. I love it, because it is reality. There is this psychological bias/desire in the wargamer community to believe that the outcome/survival of conflict are the result of skill and expertise. Of course, RNG throws in a big monkey wrench. You can have 10 years of elite training, but if you are standing where a shell lands, your odds are the same as the guy who was kidnapped off the street yesterday and they put a rifle in his hand this morning. The shell does not know or care.

I am favor of RNG being realistic, and also as means to counter a false bias among the public that events are in their control or the control of so called leaders. The gods of RNG love f**k**g with mortals.

PS: I don't believe GG is making a philosophical statement with his game design. Rather I think it is a board game legacy, and the fact an RNG model of this scale will run on current hardware, but an agent/physics model would just melt chips while you wait hours for a battle to resolve.

RNG is really not RNG in computers. Of course you know this. PseudoRNG's FTW!!!!

[MarkShot]

It is quite possible that RNG does not exist in IRL. Simply because we cannot predict the collapse of the wave function does not mean that its outcome was not already determined; but we just don't know whether the cat is alive or dead without opening the box. But for practical purposes, the Quantum Superposition and Computer RNG are random for everyday humans.

[HardLuckYetAgain]

My point is is that they are seeded. eol

The box with the cat can be determined knowing the seed from your example

[HardLuckYetAgain]

I digress and crawl back into my box. You can guess if I am there or not

[MarkShot]

Well if you can work out the seed value for the universe; a Nobel Prize for you.

This whole meme of living in a computer simulation is spreading. But this happens with every tech. Europeans after the development of clocks envisioned the Universe as machine that was clock like.

<Rod Serling steps out from a dimly lit corner>