Saber Cherry...an astral favor if you will.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Any chance you can run your combat sim with astral duels? Or does it only sim things that you know about already without using the game's internal engines?

I would love to know that chance folks have of winning astral duels as attacker and defender with astral picks of 1-10. I seems the more powerful astral mage almost always wins. But this may not always be the case.

[Saber Cherry]

Well... I kind of forget how they work. I think it is just astral skill + 1d6 (not open-ended) but I'm not really sure...

[SurvivalistMerc]

Maybe one of the nice devs will come and tell us.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Well... I kind of forget how they work. I think it is just astral skill + 1d6 (not open-ended) but I'm not really sure...

Yes. Both die on tie.

[Saber Cherry]

Mind Duel Death Rates.

Differential Rolls for Opposing 1d6 Closed:

-6 : 0.000%
-5 : 2.788%
-4 : 5.539%
-3 : 8.342%
-2 : 11.119%
-1 : 13.866%
0 : 16.628%
1 : 13.862%
2 : 11.131%
3 : 8.323%
4 : 5.595%
5 : 2.807%
6 : 0.000%

Cumulative Death Probability:

-6 :100.000%
-5 :100.000%
-4 : 97.212%
-3 : 91.673%
-2 : 83.331%
-1 : 72.212%
0 : 58.346%
1 : 41.718%
2 : 27.856%
3 : 16.725%
4 : 8.402%
5 : 2.807%
6 : 0.000%

The minor asymmetry is due to small sampling size (2,000,000) so it seems to be good to 2.5 figures.

Those are rolls for opposing 1d6. The "Cumulative" figures give a mages chance of death in a mind duel with the listed skill (ignore the plus signs). In other words, if a mage's skill is 5 lower, he always dies; 4 lower, he dies 97.2% of the time... at equal levels, each mage has a 58.3% chance of death. +5 gives you a 100% chance of killing the opponent (but you still die 2.8% of the time) and you have to be 6 levels above or higher to always win and never die.

Note that communion-induced magic levels are not displayed on the screen.

-Cherry

P.S. I'll post this in a new thread too.

[SurvivalistMerc]

Thanks, Saber Cherry.

This is good to know. I'm surprised these rolls are not open-ended as all the other rolls in Dominions are, and that would give lower-astral folks a small chance to survive attack.

I can also see why folks advise to take at least 6 astral with your pretender.

And I can also see the wisdom of using communions. Pythium would be an awful nation to face with a SC astral pretender.

And using astral duel as an automatic defense tool would be dangerous as well depending on whether the attacker had a crystal matrix.

Suitable complex.

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Cumulative Death Probability:

-6 :100.000%
-5 :100.000%
-4 : 97.212%
-3 : 91.673%
-2 : 83.331%
-1 : 72.212%
0 : 58.346%
1 : 41.718%
2 : 27.856%
3 : 16.725%
4 : 8.402%
5 : 2.807%
6 : 0.000%

This only confirms that Mind Duel needs to be adjusted in some way in my mind.

Lets just look at race/themes with Astral mages and lowest costing blood/astral mage for communion slaves

Abysia
Warlock 2 Astral, 1 Random, 3 Blood. 270G
Warlock Apprentice 1 Astral, 2 Blood. 150G

Atlantis
Deep Seer 2 Astral 180G

Pythium
Arch Theurg 3 Astral, 1 Random 380G
Theurg 2 Astral 150G
Theurg Acolyte 1 Astral 90G
Theurg Communicant (Slave) 50G

Ulm (Black Forest)
Fortune Teller 1 Astral, 1 Random 90G
Member of the Second Tier 2 Astral, 1 Blood 160G
Illuminated One 1 Astral 80G

C'tis
Shaman 1 Astral 110G

Arcoscephale
Astrologer 3 Astral, 1 Random 180G
Mystic 2 Astral, 3 Random 180G

Ermor (Base)
Grand Thaumaturg 2 Astral, 1 Random 340G
Thaumaturg 1 Astral 130G

Marignon (Base and FoF)
Grand Master 2 Astral 1 Random 270G
Witch Hunter 1 Astral 150G

(CotS)
Royal Navigator 2 Astral 1 Random 200G
Chartmaker 1 Astral 90G

Jotunheim (Utgard)
Norna 2 Astral 1 Random 220G
Seithkona 1 Astral 90G

R'lyeh
Starspawn 3 Astral 2 Random 280G
Starspawn 1 Astral 1 Random 150G
Star Child 1 Astral 85G

Mictlan
Moon Priest 2 Astral 230G
Mictlan Priest 1 Blood 80G

T'ien Ch'i (Base and BK)
Celestial Master 1 Astral 1 Random 250G

(Spring and Autumn)
Celestial Master 1 Astral, 2 Random 250G


As we can see, there are a few discrepencies. Also you can tell the % chance that the mages die (and thus a loss of income).

Ones that I can safely say might need to be looked at are: T'ien Ch'i, Marginon (Base and FoF), Ermor (base), Atlantis.