14 hours ago, Vergilius said:

Those X-bows went from averaging 8.34 damage to 3.75 damage plus whatever fickleness Corruption Rune produced.

Wow! I didn’t know that Ranked Discipline has such a huge impact! Certainly makes the choice difficult!

I dont really like measuring the average damage of a unit because it doesnt take the impact of attacking many times. For example, a unit with an average damage of 2.75 that attacks 3 times probably (I say probably because damage is always random) will do more damage than an unit that attacks once with an average of 4.25. With upgrades that exhaust you have to be careful with the average damage.

On 8/8/2018 at 5:21 AM, Athelin said:

I dont really like measuring the average damage of a unit because it doesnt take the impact of attacking many times. For example, a unit with an average damage of 2.75 that attacks 3 times probably (I say probably because damage is always random) will do more damage than an unit that attacks once with an average of 4.25. With upgrades that exhaust you have to be careful with the average damage.

True, at which point the discussion becomes "how do I go about maintaining that damage over the course of the game", meaning additional resources to support those numbers. However, especially in the case of Crossbowmen, my experience has been that if they get to shoot 3 or more times then you're in very good shape, so frontloading as much damage as possible into those shots is quite valuable. Especially with Marching Cornicen, Crossbows often lose nothing by rallying for a turn or two.

Math is really a starting point, and the objection as stated isn't really a mark against measuring average damage so much as perhaps a personal disinclination to look seriously at the numbers. And that's alright, in most strategy games, players pick up a lot of intuition about what works and what doesn't, and those intuitions are often, but not always, right. A good appreciation of the math however, accomplishes several things:

1. It helps me appreciate when an outcome in the game was a problem of math versus one of my own decision-making.

2. It helps me make decisions about how to build units, what kinds of builds will be effective, and why.

3. It provides an indication of the problems a unit may encounter.

4. It gives some basis for deciding whether common consensus about particular units' strengths and weaknesses is justified

I'm always on the look-out for modeling how a game unfolds. That includes things such as how damage taken affects damage output, whether flank dice are available, how to ready upgrade cards most effectively, and so forth.

And while some people may use math poorly, that's still not a great reason to ignore its value. After all, some people use fire poorly and accidentally burn their houses down, and others can use a hammer poorly. The solution is of course not to stop using such tools altogether, but to better understand their strengths and limitations so that we can use them more safely, correctly, accurately, and efficiently.