The Combat Simulator

Though technically it is not part of the editor, the combat simulator is an important part of game design. It is useful for testing whether combat between units performs as expected in scenario design. The combat simulation button can be accessed via system options either in the map window of the editor or in the main window of a game during the first turn of the first player. When the combat simulation button has been checked, combat during the first turn of the first player is not resolved normally. No casualties are generated and no hexes taken. Instead, the game engine simulates the results of the attack 200 times and gives the average outcome of these simulation in the combat simulation window.

To proceed with the game normally, the combat simulation button must unchecked again.

When a battle is resolved using the combat simulator, the game engine will take a few extra seconds to resolve the 200 simulated attacks. Once the game engine has completed the simulations, the averaged results are presented in the combat simulator window. In addition, the results are printed to Advanced Tactics Gold/logs/combatsim.txt file. (This file is overwritten whenever a new combat simulation is performed, so the combatsimulation.txt file should be renamed before the next simulation if the results are to be saved.)

For example, in the follow first turn situation, the purple infantry unit is being attacked by three green infantry units and the combat simulator button has been checked.

When the attack is initiated, the program will pop up the combat simulator window.

This window provides three sets of statistics: combat outcome, average effect of attack on subformation types, and structural damage (when appropriate). Each of these are explained below.

This section has three parts:

1. Attack Succeeded: This is the number of simulations (out of 200) that the caused all the surviving defenders to retreat.
2. Standoff: This is the number of simulations (out of 200) that all rounds of combat were played out without either the defender or the attacker having to retreat.
3. Attack Failed: This is the number of simulation (out of 200) that the all the attackers were forced to give up the attack

This section reports the effects of the combat on each subformation type for both defenders and attackers. For each subunit, there are five statistics:

1. Death: The average number of units of that subformation type that were destroyed.
2. Retreat: The average number of units of that subformation type that retreated by the end of the battle.
3. Live: The average number of units that neither retreated nor were destroyed by the end of the battle.
4. Rdn: The average readiness of the subformation type after the battle.
5. Morale: The average moral of the subformation type after the battle.

1. Average Structural Damage: The average structural damage inflicted upon an underlying location type, if one is present in the defending hex.