You say tomato...

[Little Caesar]

I'm lousy at math.

If I'm playing HYW English with 6 Bw, is it better to have three shots, each with one helper at -1, or two shots, each with 2 helpers at -2, or 6 shots, even up?

Or is it tomato, tomotto?

Hope this makes sense.
Steve

[ April 22, 2006, 08:32: Message edited by: Little Caesar ]

[Bob. (and his dog)]

I always put as many shots on one target to get better chance of a kill.

[bigalwams]

2 shots each with 2 helpers would almost make a kill certian, unless you roll like me... :eek:

Used that tactic with my Knights of St John and it worked everytime...never lost with them. The bow units were surprisingly effective. Makes me wonder why I sold them.

[David Kuijt]

I'm afraid it is situational.

Shooting at Spear (+4 vs foot) six shots at six targets gives you zero kills. Three shots with overlaps gives you slightly over an 8% chance of a kill (and about a 1/40,000 of three kills) -- a 91.8% chance of no kills at all. Two shots with double overlaps gives you an 11% chance of a kill with each shot, which works out to a 79% chance of no kills, 20% chance of one kill, and 1% of two kills. So against Spear, combine all the way.

Shooting at Psiloi or Cav/Kn, six shots at six targets gives you an 11% chance of a kill with each shot. When you do the math for this you get as follows:
</font> zero kills 49% of the time</font> one kill 37% of the time</font> two kills 11.6% of the time</font> three kills 1% of the time</font> four kills 0.2% of the time (one in 500)</font> five kills about once in 10,000</font> six kills about once in 531,441</font>So your expected result (average number of kills) with individual shots is slightly more than 0.6 elements per bound of such combat.

The same bound (shooting at Psiloi or Cav/Kn) with three shots and one support each works out like this:
</font> zero kills 42% of the time</font> one kill 42% of the time</font> two kills 14% of the time</font> three kills 2% of the time</font>With an expected value of .76 kills per bound.

And if you take two shots with two overlaps each in the same situation, you have:
</font> zero kills 34% of the time</font> one kill 49% of the time</font> two kills 17% of the time</font>With an expected value of .83 kills per bound.

So if you are looking ONLY AT KILLS, combining shots as much as possible is to your advantage. But if you are fighting Spear or Cav in the open, you want to make it as hard as possible for them to close with you next bound, which means you want to break up the enemy line. Just two recoils in the right places can change your situation from where a Cav line can close to combat with a single pip to where it needs FIVE pips to do so. That means that recoils can be at least as important to your survival as kills are, and combining shots means WAY less recoils.

So in some situations, combine. In others, do not.

Sorry!

[Martian]

Depends on the target.

Enemy General or mounted (Especially CAV!) = Pile it on!

Enemy shooters = One on one.

Or on the situation.

'Its his bound and only I have shooters, if I break his line here I can charge there with overlaps...'

Either way with six elements I'd almost always keep them in groups of three and rarely in twos so that you have the option to get the -2.

Edit: Figures DK beat me to the punch. He must type really fast or he as his combat table percentages ready for cut and paste on his desktop! ;)

[ April 22, 2006, 12:04: Message edited by: Martian ]

[El' Jocko]

Depends on your goals and your targets. Here's a quick analysis of one possible situation.

Assume you have six English longbow facing six French knights. Your goal is to choose the combination of attacks that gives the highest expected mean (average) number of elements destroyed.

We'll look at three possible combinations:

[1] Combining three longbow against a target (two attacks),
[2] Combining two longbow against a target (three attacks), and
[3] One longbow against each target (six attacks).

We'll ignore all other possible combinations for this analysis.

1. Three longbow shooting at one knight gives you a 4 to 1 attack. The chance of a kill is 15/36 or (0.417). Since you get two attacks, the expected mean is (0.834). That is, if you do this enough times, on average you should expect to destroy 0.834 knights per turn.

2. Two longbow shooting at one knight gives you a 4 to 2 attack. The chance of a kill is 9/36 or (0.25). Since you get three attacks, the expected mean is (0.75).

3. One longbow shooting at one knight gives you a 4 to 3 attack. The chance of a kill is 4/36 or (0.11). Since you get six attacks, the expected mean is (0.66).

So combining three longbow (and getting two attacks) gives you a higher expected mean than combining two longbow (and getting three attacks) or making six individual attacks.

Of course, if for some reason you've gotta kill three elements this turn to stay in the game, then making only two attacks won't give you any chance at all. So you've always got to look at the individual situation.

- Jack

[El' Jocko]

Originally posted by Martian:
Edit: Figures DK beat me to the punch. He must type really fast or he as his combat table percentages ready for cut and paste on his desktop! ;) And you both beat me. I just hope that DK wasn't able to reel those percentages out without looking them up or doing the calculations.

- Jack

[Bob. (and his dog)]

If 6 shooters are on each side, lined up opposite then the bow. MUST shoot at each other.

The only target priority in the rules is
" Elements of different sides that can shoot at each other must do so. "

BwKnBw

BwBwBw

In this case the two upper Bows must be targeted by at least one of the lower bows. All three lower Bows cannot gang up on the Kn. Two lower bows could target 1 upper bow.


Originally posted by Martian:
Depends on the target.

Enemy shooters = One on one.

[CT Yankee]

6 shooters on each side? Sounds like the OK Corral.

[Bob. (and his dog)]

How about

Arabo-Aramean. 312BC-240AD.
(a) Nabataea 250BC-106AD: 1x3Kn or 3Cv (Gen), 1x2LH, 1x4Bd, 2x3Ax or 2Ps, 2x4Bw, 5x3Bw or 2Ps.
OR
(b) Emesa 51BC-72AD: 1x4Kn (Gen), 2x2LH, 1x4Ax, 2x3Ax or 2Ps, 6x3Bw.

vs

II/42. Tamil Indian and Sinhalese. 175BC-1515AD.
(c) Sinhalese 175BC-300AD: 1xEl (Gen), 1xEl, 2x3Wb, 6x3Bw, 2x2Ps.

Also
III/ 7. Pre-Samurai Japanese. 500AD-900AD.
(a) 500-644AD: 1x3Cv or 4Bw (Gen), 2x3Cv, 6x3Bw, 1x3Bw or 2Ps, 2x3Ax.
(b) 645-900AD: 1x3Cv or 4Bw (Gen), 3x3Cv, 6x4Bw, 1x4Ax, 1xArt.


IV/29. Tupi. 1200AD-1601AD.
1x3Wb (Gen), 6x3Bw, 5x3Wb.

[CT Yankee]

Of course! Thanks, Bob.

[Bob. (and his dog)]

Are there any Tupi named Erp? Or a couple of Sinhalese who go by Ike and Billy Clanton smile.gif

CTY's image of a shoot out does apply to a game with so many bows.

If I were doing the Duplicate this year, I think I would have one game with armies that are Bow heavy to see what happens.

By the way, do the HYW English hold the record for the most bows (of all types) that any one army can have?

IV/62. 100 Years’ War English. 1322AD-1455AD.
1x3Kn//4Bd (Gen), 2x3Kn//4Bd, 6x4Lb, 1x3Sp or 2Ps, 1x4Lb, 1x3Cb.

[David Kuijt]

Originally posted by Bob. (and his dog):

By the way, do the HYW English hold the record for the most bows (of all types) that any one army can have?
(They have 8)

Hell no.

I/3 Nubians have 10, as do IV/72 Amazonian, Elamite, North-Western American, and some others.

I/5ac Early Susiana and Elam have 12.

[Little Caesar]

You can give the HYW English the artillery option which is great because even though it's the 1400's when you put it in a BUA it automatically gets a swivel mount.

I love reaching out and touching people at 5".

Steve

[El' Jocko]

Originally posted by David Kuijt:
I/3 Nubians have 10, as do IV/72 Amazonian, Elamite, North-Western American, and some others.

I/5ac Early Susiana and Elam have 12. Yes, but what historical matchup, non-civil war, can be fielded with the most possible bow?

I could actually look this up myself, but I'm lazy and I figure you know off the top of your head. smile.gif

- Jack

[Roland Fricke]

Early Egyptian vs Nubian
or Amazonian vs Tupi

Both historical matchups and have 16 combined Bows possible. No Arty to mess with. The OK Corral with machine guns.

[David Kuijt]

Originally posted by El' Jocko:
Yes, but what historical matchup, non-civil war, can be fielded with the most possible bow?
III/6a Emishi vs. III/7a Pre-Samurai Japanese has 20, as does I/1a Early Sumerian vs. I/5a Early Susiana and Elam. I think that's the best you can do without civil wars.

IV/11 NW American vs. III/41 Dog Peoples only has 19.