Re: Smashes (was: Another combat factor)

Ed Bailey (bailey@hagar.ph.utexas.edu)
Wed, 21 Sep 1994 16:55:37 -0500

Rich writes:
> Are there nasty, counterintuitive consequences to 4-in-a-row?

Yes. Consider the following combat.

Side A -- N peasants, M knights
Side B -- D dragons
where N >> M >> D (say D ~= 1, M ~= 10, and N > 100)

The combat looks (in general) like:
1) 4 * N/(N+M) peasants swing, and 4 * M/(N+M) knights swing, then
2) one dragon swings, then
3) repeat.

As N gets large, a larger and larger percentage of peasants start to
swing and fewer and fewer knights get a chance, so the stack's combat
effectiveness decreases.

Ed Bailey

P.S. I'll be happy to run some actual numbers, if this example isn't clear
in the abstract.

--
Ed Bailey                | Voice: (512) 471-4198   Fax: (512) 471-6715
Inst. for Fusion Studies | Internet: bailey@{hagar,ziggy}.ph.utexas.edu,
Univ. of Texas at Austin |   u70262@c.nersc.gov, or pnab643@chpc.utexas.edu
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