We can finally start diving back in here. I tested a baseline where both the attacker and the defender were the following:
- no military bonuses of any kind
- 1000 figs
This is just a basic, equally matched fight. The results:
125 fighters lost dogfights against the defending fighters
55 defending fighters were shot down by the attacking air forces
@Darrk’s assessment is close, but it’s even more than large fleet disparities: any matchup inherently favors the defender by more than a factor of 2x. This is because battles are turn-based. In each stage:
- All of your target’s defending units fire first, taking no damage.
- Your attacking forces take losses.
- Your remaining forces fire, your target takes damage.
The result is a dramatic mismatch on its own, with bonuses compounding the issue. This is why it’s so dramatic when Wardancers defend; their “attack bonus” is actually a bonus on their defensive units’ attacking stat, not an “attacking only” bonus.
So bonuses themselves aren’t the problem, they just exacerbate the root imbalance.
What’s worse is, defender-first makes it incredibly difficult for smaller players to fight back. If a smaller player is able to muster up enough fleet to match their opponent, they’re going to get smacked around anyway. A smaller player has to support a larger fleet than their larger opponent before they can even break even.
Solution A: Attacker-First
Attacking-first would also be a problem, because farming would be cheaper. However, as farming cost is not much of an existing factor as it is, the impact would be less dramatic.
Solution B: Randomize Order
Turn-order is determined randomly on a per-battle basis. This could be something that is influenced by ops, research, etc.
Solution C: Replace Turn-Based Entirely
We replace turns with direct match-ups, with neither attacking nor defending having any inherent advantage.
The great news is that we can now build support for all 3 of these (and/or others), and swap them in and out as galaxy settings.
As always, feedback and ideas are welcome.