Question about initiative

[Metathron]

I attack a group of high druids with my warlock who has only a stack of stalkers. I expect my stalkers to go first, though I don't know by heart what the high druids' initiative is and to my surprise the druids go first - yikes. Obviously, I made an error in judgment. But then I right click the druids and see that their initiative is 10, while my stalkers' is 12. Huh? How could they go first? Then I wonder whether higher morale could be the deciding factor, but no, both have morale 1.

What gives?

[tb5841]

Each unit acts when its ATB value gets to 1 (you can't see this value), and its ATB value is set to 0 after acting (0.5 if morale triggers). At the start of a battle, each unit is given a random ATB value between 0 and 0.25, and initiative determines how quickly this value grows.

So with a higher initiative, stalkers are much more likely to act first, but not guaranteed to.

[Metathron]

Is this ATB value liable to change if you try attacking a stack later on or from a different angle (:D) or is it preset (hopefully not)?

[Mlai]

The ATB bar does not change unless the creature in question is affected by a spell, an ability, or morale changes. All of which happen quite often, so it's not as if it's static.

But it doesn't randomly change without causes; that would detract from turn based strategy.

[tb5841]

If you mean attacking it later/from a different angle on the adventure map - no idea, try it and post results.

[Metathron]

I loaded and attacked the druids again. This time I used only 4 stalkers in 4 stacks, and guess what, 3 of them got to go before the druids, so I only lost one stalker in total which is a huge change from the thirty-something I lost when I first tried.

Seems pretty random to me.

[Mlai]

OH, if you mean are the numbers different if you reload from the adventure map, then of course.

But once you're in the battle itself, all the probabilities are preloaded as long as you follow the same course of action.

You've prolly noticed that yourself. If you reload a battle, and as long as you don't make any different moves, every number is the same until you make a different move than your last attempt.

[danhvo]

Yes, the initial initiative order seems fixed if you do everything the same. But I notice that there are things you can do that makes the computer reshuffle:

1. Splitting up your stacks, as you've noticed.

2. Move your stacks around (in your 7 army slots, not on the battlefield), before starting the battle. This, however, only seems to change the order of your own stacks, not your enemy's. The initial ATB (0 - .25) appears to be generated for the slot; whichever stack is in that slot gets that number.

3. Change which stacks to join the battle. If there's a stack that you know will be useless in the battle, don't deploy it, and see whether the initial order would change to your advantage.

[sfidanza]

Changing the random factors, like starting ATB, is tied to the seed of the pseudo-random generator. If you're not familiar with generation of random numbers by a computer, it's nothing too complex: the computer starts from a number (the seed), and pick "random" numbers in a determined sequence from it. Start from another seed, you'll get other random numbers. But take your first seed again, and you'll get the same "random" results.

For better randomness, computers use internal time, or even better, movement of your mouse, to create a unique seed. But in games like H5, it's the opposite: they save their seed to be able to reproduce the same events again if you reload. In a combat, that's what happens. H5 uses different separate random sequences (one for skills, one for combat, things like that).

All in all, to change the random starting ATB, you have to make H5 use some random numbers from the combat sequence (as danhvo explained), so the ATB picking actually uses other numbers, and gives other results.