How math can help you abuse Japanese units

[Sporting_Lisbon]

Ashigarus and yumis are great units but suffer from an interesting situation: overkill.

What is overkill?

Having 24 attack might sound a lot better than 22. However that depends on the units you're facing.

For instance, the common musketeer.

150/24=6,25

150/22=6,82


Guess what, both units with 22 and 24 attack require 7 hits to take down a 150 hp unit.

Still, japs have a lot of attack boosts. If you wanna fight a musk/hus spam with an ashi spam of your own, you'd better fix that overkill issue.

You have 3 options:

- Ashi attack card;

- Isolation;

- Golden pavillion.

In most situations the ashi attack card is the easiest way to go.

With +15% atk, ashis go from 24 atk to 27,6.

150/27,6=5,43

For microing matters this means that when u drag box 6 ashis, they'll take down a musk.

But let's talk about evil things. Like breaking the system. Xbows have 125 ranged hp. 125/24=5,20. 6 hits for an xbow? Sounds like a bad deal.

125/27,6=4,52. Now that's 5 hits for an xbow. While xbows need 8 hits to kill an ashi. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Conclusion: if you wanna use ashis vs musks or xbows, find a way to increase their attack. Note that 24*5=120 so ashis are already perfect vs pikes.

Regarding yumis:

150/27=5,56

With +15%:

150/31,05=4,83

So if you wanna beat musks with yumis you'd better also find a way to increase their attack a little so that you can 5 shot-kill a musk and reduce overkill.



However there's this great wonder that no one uses in colonial.

The golden pavillion!

It gives you 3 yumis and an aura upgrade to units. If you're sticking with ranged units, +10% attack for ranged units. If you wanna go for a combo with nagis, +10% hp for all units.

Ashis fix their overkill problem vs musks with that +10%.

However, now if you add +15% from card, you get 30 attack ashis.

5 shot killing musks, cetans, yumis, lbs, xbows with ashis? Sounds awesome!

4 shot killing pikes, maces and strelets?

Yumis don't benefit as much as crazy ashis but having 22,5 attack can make countering yumis with cav quite more difficult.

[36drew]

Interesting to see just how important the math is for Japan. Thanks for posting.

[Bart331]

This approach requires perfect micro, but in practice most players just atk move ftw with their ashi if numbers increase. And with the atk move there is some randomizer applied over the whole overkill discussion so every increase in atk will be noticable when numbers are lrg enough. Do an experiment with 30 ashi vs 30 musks with various amounts of atk and the results will not suddenly increase if the attack reaches an critical amount for a 1 shot kill. Though i agree this can be really helpfull for sniping out pikes/musk to clear the path for nagi.

My thought, maybe its just my sucky micro, but i think every single attack increase counts, no matter if it makes 5,6 or 7 ashi 1 shot kill a musk.

[Sporting_Lisbon]

[quote=""Bart331""]This approach requires perfect micro, but in practice most players just atk move ftw with their ashi if numbers increase. And with the atk move there is some randomizer applied over the whole overkill discussion so every increase in atk will be noticable when numbers are lrg enough. Do an experiment with 30 ashi vs 30 musks with various amounts of atk and the results will not suddenly increase if the attack reaches an critical amount for a 1 shot kill.[/quote]

It obviously depends on the mix of units especially because you often attack a unit with the same type of units.

It doesn't matter if you attack move or not. Pure ashis vs pure musks with and without the ashi attack card is a lot different.

Let's put it this way: regardless of how you micro it, 24 isn't a round number for a lot of units. This means you'll need an extra shot whereas if you had +1 attack it wouldn't be needed.

150/24=6,25=7 while 150/25=6

This means that you have to shoot 7 times with 24 attack to kill a musk. Basically that's the same as the musks have 24*7 hp = 168 hp or the same as your ashis having 150/7 atk = 21,43.

No matter if you use the 5% from consu, the 10% from golden pav, or the 15% from the attack card, they'll all just let your ashis kill a musk in 6 hits. 150/6 atk = 25.

25/21,43 = 117% or a 17% attack boost vs musks that you can get from the said +5% from the consulate.


It's kinda like the hakkas. Vs skirms, having 121 attack or 80 is the same, both require 2 hits.

Also another tip on the same chapter. Vs xbows and pikes, keep your tc with 7 vills. 63 attack is enough for the wanted 2 shot-kill.

[DutchNvG]

[quote=""Sporting_Lisbon""]Xbows have 125 hp. 125/24=5,20. 6 hits for an xbow? Sounds like a bad deal.[/quote]

Xbows got 20% ranged resistance, what means that Ashigarus need 7 hits to kill 1 xbow: 125 / (0.80 x 24) = 6.51

Edit for under here: aahh...

[Sporting_Lisbon]

Xbows have 100 hp not 125, 100/0.80=125.

[Zutazuta]

You can't afford to think about this type of things and crunching numbers in your head while playing and trying to optimize units for overkill. It might be plausible with your first 10 units or so, but from there, its really not effect or possible to split that well. Unit positioning, now there is something that is effective.

[Sporting_Lisbon]

[quote=""Zutazuta""]You can't afford to think about this type of things and crunching numbers in your head while playing and trying to optimize units for overkill. It might be plausible with your first 10 units or so, but from there, its really not effect or possible to split that well. Unit positioning, now there is something that is effective. [/quote]

It's not that complicated, all you need to know is that 24 attack ashis suck vs xbows and musks. Explaining it makes it sound exaggerated :p

[Bart331]

ashi never suck, and what if after a battle half of their guys is wounded?

[36drew]

Hardcore sc players know all about this math business. It makes sense that if AOE was on the same caliber of gameplay that this sort of thing would come up more.

[Bart331]

so far aoe3 seems more micro intensive then sc2 to me

[Aaryn_GenD]

[quote=""Bart331""]so far aoe3 seems more micro intensive then sc2 to me[/quote]

and strelets>cuirassier eh? ;-)

[36drew]

[quote=""Bart331""]so far aoe3 seems more micro intensive then sc2 to me[/quote]

It might reward macro a bit more than micro at this point, but as the game evolves over time I'm sure it will happen. The thing about SC2 is that fights are over so fast. Early game in a roach vs roach scenario or something, I pull back my targeted roach etc.

You've also got to remember things like unit positioning are included in the definition of micro. And unit positioning is very important.

[Drag]

I think zvz tends to be the most micro heavy when you see zergling baneling play. Although that's just from watching, maybe someone can fill me in.