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How to balance (calculate strength of) units in any strategy game

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Date Editor Before After
7/4/2016 1:11:18 PMEErankAdminAnarchid before revert after revert
7/3/2016 7:24:50 PMEErankAdminAnarchid before revert after revert
7/3/2016 7:20:52 PMEErankAdminAnarchid before revert after revert
Before After
1 [quote]Can you give us some example new unit prices? [/quote] 1 [quote]Can you give us some example new unit prices? [/quote]
2 [quote]For ZK it will be nearly impossible to solve the equation analytically[/quote] 2 [quote]For ZK it will be nearly impossible to solve the equation analytically[/quote]
3 Even aside from indirect combat utility ( things which don't do damage can be useful: constructors, mex, placeholder, aspis, vulture, etc) , i don't think that even when solved this equation would be very good at least for things that interest me ( combat outcome prediction) because it seems to model combat as a continuous process where things like One Hit Kill don't happen. I would expect the algorithm to undervalue Duck vs Glaive, for example, because of Duck's DPS not being that much compensated by its health. 3 Even aside from indirect combat utility ( things which don't do damage can be useful: constructors, mex, placeholder, aspis, vulture, etc) , i don't think that even when solved this equation would be very good at least for things that interest me ( combat outcome prediction) because it seems to model combat as a continuous process where things like One Hit Kill don't happen. I would expect the equation to undervalue Duck vs Glaive, for example, because of Duck's DPS not being that much compensated by its health.
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5 However, it would be interesting to measure analytical (and other) combat models for their accuracy for combat prediction if there was a dataset of combats. Since that is useful in other ways too, maybe i'll try to figure out how to generate a reasonable dataset sometime autumnly, especially as replay archives are now accessible and scrapeable. 5 However, it would be interesting to measure analytical (and other) combat models for their accuracy for combat prediction if there was a dataset of combats. Since that is useful in other ways too, maybe i'll try to figure out how to generate a reasonable dataset sometime autumnly, especially as replay archives are now accessible and scrapeable.
6 \n 6 \n
7 Now, for the fun part. Not solving an equation analytically means solving it either by brute force, or by approximation, right? There was a series of interesting papers that achieved good combat outcome prediction accuracies by using machine learning. The one i found most intriguing was the one that assumed a simple lanchester's square law combat model with [i]pairwise effective dps[/i] for each unit type, and machine-learned these pairwise DPS to make the model work. This was just a proof of concept for Starcraft, where armor modifiers are known and combat is fairly simple; for ZK, effective DPS could easily encode things like accuracy, leading, and maybe even AoE. 7 Now, for the fun part. Not solving an equation analytically means solving it either by brute force, or by approximation, right? There was a series of interesting papers that achieved good combat outcome prediction accuracies by using machine learning. The one i found most intriguing was the one that assumed a simple lanchester's square law combat model with [i]pairwise effective dps[/i] for each unit type, and machine-learned these pairwise DPS to make the model work. This was just a proof of concept for Starcraft, where armor modifiers are known and combat is fairly simple; for ZK, effective DPS could easily encode things like accuracy, leading, and maybe even AoE.
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9 (but not utility things like mentioned above: the lanchester model, even with pairwise dps, cannot model unit synergies and utilities) 9 (but not utility things like mentioned above: the lanchester model, even with pairwise dps, cannot model unit synergies and utilities)
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11 And again, applying that to ZK requires a dataset. 11 And again, applying that to ZK requires a dataset.
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13 What features should objects in such a dataset have? 13 What features should objects in such a dataset have?