the most effective strategy...could someone do the maths?

[dehro]

a thought brought up by the reading of the algorithm of evil (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SortingAlgorithmOfEvil) has been buging me for a while now. Since I suck at maths, I propose the matter to you.
In the following situation, what would be the best strategy?

on the battlefield we have 1000 fighters on one side, and 9 stronger fighters on the other side.
let's say that the 9 "heroes" are fighting monks and that the 1000 soldiers must conquer their monastery.
the monastery has 9 levels and is built so that each monk can defend the access to the next level.
the monks are also of different levels of skill, and know this, whereas the enemy soldiers are all of the same level, inferior to even the weakest of the monks. (we can consider them to be different in the "number of enemies that they can take down before kicking the bucket")...they are therefore of ascending "value" from apprentice to abbot (or champion fighter...just a figure of speech..if you prefere you can say from white belt to, say... 3rd dan, or something similar).

now... given that the important thing is not to win the fight, which might be more than can be asked from them, but taking down the largest number of enemies before dying, how could they achieve this?
should they place themselves in ascending order of "strenght" from the first to the last level of the monastery? in opposite order?
or should they place themselves at random?

let's not work on loopholes, let's not come up with alternative strategies like putting all of the monks in the first floor...
I'm asking what would be the most effective placing of the monks, from a statistic/mathematic point of view.. one monk each level.

I have a theory, but as I said I suck at maths, and can not say that it would work out the way I think it would.

have fun.

P.S. If you want to juggle with the numbers and the strength of each fighter so that they can defeat a total of 1000 enemies (and not more than that, or I feel it would fail the experiment) and win the day, feel free to do so, I don't really mind... it's the correct use of strategy and placement that bugs me.

[Xilehxt]

Hmm, I think placing the strongest at the bottom and getting weaker as you go to the top would be best. The strongest would face the most fighters, as long as they can't skip levels and such.

[Sir_Norbert]

Fairly obvious, if each monk has a fixed number of fighters he can take down before dying, then the sum of these numbers is the total number of enemies the nine monks can take down. It doesn't make a scrap of difference what order they're in.

In actual practice, the best strategy is for the nine to fight together on the same level, as they will almost certainly be able to take down more between them than the sum of what each would fighting on his own.

[Winterwind]

First of all, Sir_Norbert is perfectly right.

It depends on the rules you assume to govern that contest. So far, you haven't specified anything allowing a strict mathematical analysis yet.

Note, first of all, that the reason why the Sorting Algorithm of Evil plays a role in games is because, without the characters becoming stronger first by defeating the weaker enemies, they wouldn't stand a chance at all to defeat the stronger ones. Since the soldiers, assuming realism, do not become stronger just because they defeat the weaker monks, this is not the case here.

Otherwise it depends on the rules and the precise numerical values.


For instance, lets assume the following rules:
- each soldier deals one damage point per round
- each monk can take X damage points before he dies
- each monk can kill Y soldiers per round
- both sides deal the damage simultaneouly

Under these rules, depending on the number of soldiers and the exact values of X and Y for each monk, I can construct one situation A where it makes more sense to place the weaker one first, or a situation B where it makes more sense to place the stronger one first:


A) Let's assume that there are
- 7 enemy soldiers
- one strong monk called Arnold who can kill 3 soldiers per round and can take 6 damage before he dies
- one weak monk called Wimpy who can kill 2 soldiers per round and can take 4 damage before he dies.

If you place Arnold first, the following happens:
* Arnold faces 7 soldiers. He kills 3 of them, suffers 7 damage, and dies.
* Wimpy faces 4 remaining soldiers. He kills 2 of them, suffers 4 damage, and dies.
* 2 soldiers remain.

If you place Wimpy first, the following happens:
* Wimpy faces 7 soldiers. He kills 2 of them, suffers 7 damage, and dies.
* Arnold faces 5 remaining soldiers. He kills 3 of them, suffers 5 damage, survives with 1 hit point.
* Arnold faces 2 remaining soldiers. He kills both of them, suffers 2 damage, and dies.
* Everyone is dead.

It would seem that placing the weaker one first is better, then. However, let's change this to:


B) where we assume:
- 8 enemy soldiers
- one strong monk called Arnold who can kill 3 soldiers per round and can take 9 damage before he dies
- one weak monk called Wimpy who can kill 2 soldiers per round and can take 5 damage before he dies.

If you place Arnold first, the following happens:
* Arnold faces 8 soldiers. He kills 3 of them, suffers 8 damage, and survives with 1 hit point
* Arnold faces 5 remaining soldiers. He kills 3 of them, suffers 5 damage, and dies.
* Wimpy faces 2 remaining soldiers. He kills both of them, suffers 2 damage, and survives with 2 hit points.
* The monks have won.

If you place Wimpy first, the following happens:
* Wimpy faces 8 soldiers. He kills 2 of them, suffers 8 damage, and dies.
* Arnold faces 6 remaining soldiers. He kills 3 of them, suffers 6 damage, survives with 3 hit points.
* Arnold faces 3 remaining soldiers. He kills them all, suffers 3 damage, and dies.
* Everyone is dead.

So here, it would make more sense to place the stronger one first.


Now, this was under some specific rule-set, only changing the relative strengths of the monks.
Assuming yet different rule-sets, everything would change again.

Basically, the answer is not answerable generally, only for specific cases. Your case is not specific enough - you have given the number of soldiers and monks, but didn't say either how strong each monk is relatively to the other monks and the soldiers, and under which rules they fight.


Now, if you want the rules to be "realism", well... what does that mean?

The closest thing I can conceive of that resembles realism is, that only a limited number of soldiers can fight each monk at once. This means, however, that the latest monk does not face any different conditions than the first one who has to fight - sure, the enemy may have less soldiers in reserve, but since he fights only 2-3 at once anyway, it doesn't matter for him. And then, the "quality" of the monks is again measurable only in how many soldiers they can take on before they fall - which leads to exactly the situation Sir_Norbert described. If the strongest monk is worth 90 soldiers, the weakest one 10, and the others accordingly (20, 30, 40,...), they will kill 10+20+30+...+90=450 monks altogether, no matter their order.

[dehro]

you are of course right... and since I am not versed in maths, I've been imprecise...I'll try to be more so.
I was not thinking of "room for battle" ...let's just assume that the soldiers "have" to kill each monk before they go up to the next one. and that the monk sits in the middle of the room
I was factoring in exaustion and wounds as factors contributing in killing the monk...you can of course talk about hitpoints..I guess that works as well.
(I was thinking of a kung-fu-movielike scenario where each baddy gets his chance to hit the hero and gets a trounching, untill the hero's worn out and is overwhelmed.)

I was however also considering the "effectiveness" of each monk would be related to the number of opponents..
for example Ubermonk can face 1000 opponents and kill 40 before dying.
wimpymonk can only kill 5 when confronting 1000 soldiers.
if Ubermonk was to fight against 500 or less opponents, however, he would be more effective and manage to kill more than 40... same applies to wimpymonk...

uhm... no, I realise that without precise numbers this is not going to be solved at all...

uh... :smallfrown: how can I work around this?

Edit: I realize the implications of the algorithm of evil... but that's only the starting point of my abstract reasoning..I do not need to work this into a story of any sort, so I don't care what happens to either the soldiers or the monks

[Dervag]

The thing is, if you fight enemies one at a time then it doesn't matter how many enemies are left in reserve as long as there are more than you can kill. Thus the German saying:

"One of our Tiger tanks is worth ten of the Americans' Shermans... but the bastards always have an eleventh Sherman hiding around somewhere."

In that case, it doesn't matter to a lone Tiger whether there are eleven Shermans or eleven hundred. And if each Tiger can soak up ten Shermans it doesn't matter how you place the Tigers as long as you guarantee that every one of them will have a chance to engage all the Shermans left alive at the time they reach it.

If, on the other hand, enemies can gang up on you and become more likely to kill you in a given amount of time if they do so, it makes sense to concentrate your forces in one place where they can support each other. In one on one combat you get 'Horatius at the Bridge', a Roman poem about the warrior Horatius and two of his buddies who triple-handedly stopped an entire Etruscan army from crossing a bridge and attacking Rome. The reason? The bridge was only three Etruscans (or Romans) wide, so all Horatius and his buddies had to do was hold out against three Etruscans. Granted, doing so for all day would be practically impossible and the poem may be a legend, but you get the idea. Whereas if Horatius and his buddies had confronted the Etruscans in the open they would have been quickly killed- no good.

[The Extinguisher]

But are we assuming a one on one fight, or a mass gang up.

If it's a mass gang up, it would make sense to go strongest to weakest. The strongest would have to fight the initial 1000, where the 9th may not even have to fight.

[Winterwind]

@dehro: First of all, if this is supposed to be realistic, you have to keep in mind that there is absolutely no way that 1000 soldiers will be able to attack a single monk at once - and on the other hand, as long as the number a monk faces remains constant, it doesn't matter to him how many soldiers there are waiting in reserve, i.e. if there are 1000 soldiers, but only 20 can engage a monk at once, it will not change anything no matter what the numbers and other conditions are whether you place the stronger monk or the weaker monk first - unless they managed to kill off so many soldiers their number dropped below 20.

Assuming all 1000 could attack at once... Well, you could try to find some formula describing how the number of soldiers a single monk can kill depends on the number of soldiers he fights against, something like
N=10*L*0.999^(S)
where N is the number of soldiers a monk can kill, L is the "level" of the monk, i.e. whether it's the wimpy level 1 novice or the mighty level 9 abbot, and S is the number of soldiers they fight; for example, a level 5 monk could kill, according to this formula, 18 soldiers when facing 1000 at once, but 37 if it were only 300; however, this formula is just something completely arbitrary I just made up, and depending on the formula you choose, everything will look entirely different. Even with this one, I suspect it would be rather difficult to calulate what the ideal order would be, it would likely depend again on the relative strength of the monks, and I also suspect it would be something very convoluted, like 3rd strongest, 7sth strongest, strongest, 2nd weakest,...

In short, there is no simple answer to this. Not unless you can exactly specify how many soldiers which monk can kill in which situation.


But are we assuming a one on one fight, or a mass gang up.

If it's a mass gang up, it would make sense to go strongest to weakest. The strongest would have to fight the initial 1000, where the 9th may not even have to fight.No, not necessarily. See situation A) in my last post to see why not.

[Dervag]

@dehro: First of all, if this is supposed to be realistic, you have to keep in mind that there is absolutely no way that 1000 soldiers will be able to attack a single monk at once - and on the other hand, as long as the number a monk faces remains constant, it doesn't matter to him how many soldiers there are waiting in reserve, i.e. if there are 1000 soldiers, but only 20 can engage a monk at once, it will not change anything no matter what the numbers and other conditions are whether you place the stronger monk or the weaker monk first - unless they managed to kill off so many soldiers their number dropped below 20.What if the weaker monk can only survive being attacked by 20 for X seconds, while the stronger monk can survive it for Y seconds?

[thubby]

mid range on the bottom, weak in the middle, strongest on top.
that way initial mooks cause little damage, should that level be breached, they get zerged on floor 2, and the masters are the ones training new guys, they should be reserved as long as possible.

[Winterwind]

What if the weaker monk can only survive being attacked by 20 for X seconds, while the stronger monk can survive it for Y seconds?Doesn't make a difference, either, as long as there are enough in reserve.

Let's assume the stronger monk can fight 20 soldiers for 40 seconds, the weaker one for 20 seconds. Every monk kills one soldier per second in the fight.
Since there are enough soldiers to replace the fallen ones all the time, they will be incessantly facing 20 enemy soldiers. This means that if you place the stronger one first, weaker one second, the stronger one will first kill 40, die, then the weaker one will kill 20, and die as well.
If you place the weaker one first, he will kill 20, die, then the stronger one will kill 40, and die again. No difference.

The only way how the order can make a difference to begin with is if the numbers a monk faces vary, i.e. if the first monks can drop the total number of soldiers below the mark of how many can face a single monk at once - at which point it will depend, again, on your assumptions how the number of opponents a monk faces affects his performance.

[Manga Shoggoth]

The most effective strategy would be to set fire to the monastery. 1000 fighters can stock a lot of firewood...

Starving the monks out would be a good strategy too.

[Freshmeat]

It'd probably be best to take morale into account. If you place the strongest at the bottom, the soldiers are more inclined to panic and flee if they consider that after defeating the first monk, they'll have to defeat 8 more. They won't know that the following 8 are of lesser skill.

By contrast, putting the strongest one at the top might invoke fear into the hearts of all soldiers (since they see their enemies gradually growing stronger and stronger), but their morale will be much higher after defeating a considerable number of monks already.

Of course, in a more realistic situation (or semi-realistic situation, at least), the monks would simply fight together or use guerilla tactics.

[Manga Shoggoth]

It'd probably be best to take morale into account.
...

This is a good point, and cuts both ways. If you have read Legend (David Gemmell), the walls of Dross Delnoch are described as follows:



Wikipedia Article on Dros Delnoch
Dros Delnoch is made of six concentric walls and a keep. The first and strongest wall is sixty feet high and four hundred paces wide, with towers set every fifty paces. Wall One is called Eldibar, meaning 'Exultation', for it is where the enemy is initially repelled. Wall Two is called Musif, or 'Despair', because by now the defenders have seen the fall of Eldibar. Wall Three is Kania, or 'Renewed Hope'. Wall Four is Sumitos, or 'Desperation'. Wall Five is 'Serenity', because by now the defenders know that they will die, but they are determined to face the end with courage. Wall Six is Geddon, or 'Death'. It is said that Dros Delnoch would never fall while men with courage stood on its walls.

One of the monks defending the Dros explains the names and meanings for each wall except except Geddon, noting that it was not right to discuss Geddon while under the shelter of Eldibar.

[Winterwind]

It'd probably be best to take morale into account. If you place the strongest at the bottom, the soldiers are more inclined to panic and flee if they consider that after defeating the first monk, they'll have to defeat 8 more. They won't know that the following 8 are of lesser skill.I agree. Taking morale into account, this seems like a fairly logical solution to take.
Maybe one could twink it a bit, like placing a fairly strong one at the bottom and the strongest one on the second one, so that not only are the soldiers terrified by the performance of the first monk they face, but also see that the second monk is even stronger - which might make them inclined to believe that it will go only upwards from here - but these are details.


This is a good point, and cuts both ways. If you have read Legend (David Gemmell), the walls of Dross Delnoch are described as follows:I was thinking about that book all the time when reading this thread. :smallbiggrin:

[Dervag]

Doesn't make a difference, either, as long as there are enough in reserve.

Let's assume the stronger monk can fight 20 soldiers for 40 seconds, the weaker one for 20 seconds. Every monk kills one soldier per second in the fight.
Since there are enough soldiers to replace the fallen ones all the time, they will be incessantly facing 20 enemy soldiers. This means that if you place the stronger one first, weaker one second, the stronger one will first kill 40, die, then the weaker one will kill 20, and die as well.
If you place the weaker one first, he will kill 20, die, then the stronger one will kill 40, and die again. No difference.

The only way how the order can make a difference to begin with is if the numbers a monk faces vary, i.e. if the first monks can drop the total number of soldiers below the mark of how many can face a single monk at once - at which point it will depend, again, on your assumptions how the number of opponents a monk faces affects his performance.The other way is if there are terrain issues that allow a variable number of enemies to face a monk simultaneously, depending on where they fight from. It might make sense to, for example, place the strongest monk in the lowest possible blocking point and have him hold off the entire army for a long period in this way. Whereas if the same monk tried to fight the entire army in the temple courtyard, he would end up pincushioned with arrows or knocked out from behind in a matter of seconds or minutes.

[Winterwind]

The other way is if there are terrain issues that allow a variable number of enemies to face a monk simultaneously, depending on where they fight from. It might make sense to, for example, place the strongest monk in the lowest possible blocking point and have him hold off the entire army for a long period in this way. Whereas if the same monk tried to fight the entire army in the temple courtyard, he would end up pincushioned with arrows or knocked out from behind in a matter of seconds or minutes.That is true. If the various levels allow different numbers of soldiers to fight a monk at once, you will likely want to place the strongest monk where the fewest soldiers can attack him, so that you benefit from his fighting prowess the longest.

(Well, maybe unless the monks know some strange technique which becomes the more effective the more soldiers a monk faces at once)

[Dervag]

Some sort of area-effect energy blast, perhaps?

[thubby]

Some sort of area-effect energy blast, perhaps?

*obligatory DBZ reference*

[Winterwind]

Some sort of area-effect energy blast, perhaps?Yeah, or some whirling frenzy resembling the WarCraft Blademaster's Storm of Blades, or something akin to that. If you had that, depending on its efficiency, you might want to place the strongest monk there where he can hit the most enemy soldiers with this move, as opposed to the concept of putting the strongest monk in the narrowest choke-point we discussed previously. Or some sort of balance between those.

[Paragon Badger]

Why bring math into this? It's nonsense! :smallyuk:

Have 1 monk on the first floor fight for an hour, then bring in another.
After another hour, bring in a third monk to replace the first.
After another hour, bring in a fourth monk to replace the second.
Rinse, Wash, and repeat.

Every monk gets to rest/heal for 7 hours before fighting for 2 hours straight.

[GoC]

Suppose the following situation:
Soldiers have 3hp and 2 attack
Officers have 10hp and 4 attack
Monk1 has 22hp, 15 attack
Monk2 has 37hp, 12 attack
Monk3 has 45hp, 18 attack
Monk4 has 33hp, 20 attack, fast healing 5, DR 1, but can target only 2 soldiers at once
Monk5 has 40hp, 10 attack, fast healing 8
Monk6 has 70hp, 30 attack, any soldier attacking monk6 takes 1 damage
Abbot has 50hp, 18 attack, fast healing 3, DR 1

All attacks occur simultaneously
Note: DR x means that each attack's damage is reduced by x

There are 300 soldiers, every tenth soldier is an officer, soldiers heal fully on each floor.

Not every soldier can attack the monk at the same time. How many can attack depends on the floor:
Floor1: 8
Floor2: 10
Floor3: 7
Floor4: 7
Floor5: 6
Floor6: 8
Floor7: 5

How can the monks be arranged so the at least one monk survives? Is such a thing possible?

[Blue Paladin]

Interesting. How exactly does the combat work? Can the monk attack only the soldiers that can attack him? Does he have to kill enemies in order (ie can he choose to fight an officer first if there are regular soldiers in the queue)?

edit: I don't think it is possible... Best I've gotten with three permutations is around 180. I'm sure I could optimize a little bit more, maybe get up to 200, but that's it. That one monk who can only attack two each round is a big setback. He only lives 5 rounds at the max (assuming only 5 people can attack him); that's a maximum kill count of 10.

further edit: Wait, that guy has DR. That changes things. Let me try again.

[GoC]

Interesting. How exactly does the combat work? Can the monk attack only the soldiers that can attack him? Does he have to kill enemies in order (ie can he choose to fight an officer first if there are regular soldiers in the queue)?

Hmm...
Officers attack after all the soldiers are dead and monks can't attack them until all the soldiers are dead.

[Blue Paladin]

Okay. Got it, I think. Put Monk4 in the first gate. No one can get by him.

Round 1: Monk4 slaughters 2 soldiers (10 dmg each). 8 soldiers deal 8 total damage to Monk4. Monk4 has 25/33 hp, fast heals up to 30/33 hp.

Round 2: Monk4 slaughters 2 soldiers (10 dmg each). 7 soldiers (because the next one in the queue is the officer, and he has to wait until all the soldiers are gone before he can step in) deal 7 total damage to Monk4. Monk4 has 23/33 hp, fast heals up to 28/33 hp.

Round 3: Monk4 slaughters 2 soldiers (10 dmg each). 5 soldiers deal 5 total damage to Monk4. Monk4 has 23/33 hp, fast heals up to 28/33 hp.

Round 4: Monk4 slaughters 2 soldiers (10 dmg each). 3 soldiers deal 3 total damage to Monk4. Monk4 has 25/33 hp, fast heals up to 30/33 hp.

Round 5: Monk4 slaughters the last soldier (20 dmg). The soldier deals 1 damage to Monk4 as he dies a horrible horrible death. Monk4 has 29/33 hp, fast heals up to 33/33 hp.

Round 6: Officer steps up. Monk4 slaughters said officers (20 dmg). The officer deals 3 total damage to Monk4 as he dies a horrible horrible death. Monk4 has 30/33 hp, fast heals up to 33/33 hp.

Next batch of ten steps up. Repeat.

[GoC]

*snip*

Oops.:smallredface:
I actually meant that the officers would only come in when ALL the soldiers are dead (in the whole army) but now that you mention it...
Change officers to:
Officers 15 hp, attack 8

[Blue Paladin]

Okay, so basically it's 270 soldiers all in a row, then 30 officers at the end?

If it's restricted to one officer fighting at a time, then Monk5 can survive indefinitely against the officers, on any floor. He needs to get to the officers though, and he's not terribly good at surviving a grand melee. The problem then becomes finding the order for the other monks to defeat the 270 soldiers first.

The next smallest chokepoint is Floor5: 6 attackers at once. So I guess try putting the badass Abbot there. He takes 6 damage thanks to DR, kills all 6 in return. Fast heals up 3. Net change -3hp. Without a "break" in the flow, he'll last a little less than 20 rounds. That's 120 or so kills. That's not bad. I'll plug in the numbers to get specifics later.

Next badass is the Monk4. Let's say he takes a 7 attacker floor. He takes 7 damage, kills 2 in return. Fast heals up 5. Net change -2hp. He should last about sixteen rounds. That's 32 kills. Not terrible. Not great.

Monk6 is a natural fit for floor 2. If he can "save up" extra attack for the soldiers that will fill in after he kills the 10 attackers, then he can take out an additional 3 soldiers (ie attacking soldier takes 1 damage, Monk6 deals 2 damage to kill him; after all 10 attackers are dead, he deals 3 damage to each of the next three soldiers and 1 damage to the next schmuck). In any event, he'll be gone in 7 rounds. So that's either 70 kills (or 90+ kills, if the "extra" damage gets to apply).

I'll play with the numbers some more, but it's not looking totally impossible.

If officers can attack in the same manner as soldiers (i.e. 5 or more officers can attack at the same time), there's no way the monks can survive (especially with the new stats).

[GoC]

Okay, so basically it's 270 soldiers all in a row, then 30 officers at the end?

If it's restricted to one officer fighting at a time, then Monk5 can survive indefinitely against the officers, on any floor. He needs to get to the officers though, and he's not terribly good at surviving a grand melee. The problem then becomes finding the order for the other monks to defeat the 270 soldiers first.

The next smallest chokepoint is Floor5: 6 attackers at once. So I guess try putting the badass Abbot there. He takes 6 damage thanks to DR, kills all 6 in return. Fast heals up 3. Net change -3hp. Without a "break" in the flow, he'll last a little less than 20 rounds. That's 120 or so kills. That's not bad. I'll plug in the numbers to get specifics later.

Next badass is the Monk4. Let's say he takes a 7 attacker floor. He takes 7 damage, kills 2 in return. Fast heals up 5. Net change -2hp. He should last about sixteen rounds. That's 32 kills. Not terrible. Not great.

Monk6 is a natural fit for floor 2. If he can "save up" extra attack for the soldiers that will fill in after he kills the 10 attackers, then he can take out an additional 3 soldiers (ie attacking soldier takes 1 damage, Monk6 deals 2 damage to kill him; after all 10 attackers are dead, he deals 3 damage to each of the next three soldiers and 1 damage to the next schmuck). In any event, he'll be gone in 7 rounds. So that's either 70 kills (or 90+ kills, if the "extra" damage gets to apply).

I'll play with the numbers some more, but it's not looking totally impossible.

If officers can attack in the same manner as soldiers (i.e. 5 or more officers can attack at the same time), there's no way the monks can survive (especially with the new stats).

:smallredface:
Officers attack one by one.

[Hasivel]

If we assume the monks can only put 1 monk per floor, that they can't move, and that I can't see a path to victory, the best scenario I was able to come up with kills all the soldiers and 7-10 officers depending on the rules for how damage spreads, before the last monk dies. Maybe with a more elite tweak than I thought of it can be done, I came fairly close. The upgraded officers are killers.

Monk 6's "Thorns" ability is totally useless, he can't fail to kill every soldier at once no matter the floor so the extra damage is wasted. Unless he can pass it on to the next group of 10 coming in behind them in which case a little more tweaking may well result in a win.

It's notable that monk 4 can kill an infinite number of soldiers at the last level, they can only hit him for 5 damage there and he heals the same. Monk 5 can kill an infinite number of officers at any point so long as he doesn't have to face hordes of soldiers first. If there was any way to swap out monks, move floors, or simply use teamwork to attack more than one at a time they could win.

My order:
Floor 1: Monk 1 (10 Soldiers dead)
Floor 2: Monk 6 (50 Soldiers dead)
Floor 3: Monk 2 (62 Soldiers dead)
Floor 4: Monk 3 (86 Soldiers dead)
Floor 5: Monk 5 (112 Soldiers dead)
Floor 6: Abbot (204 Soldiers Dead)
Floor 7: Monk 4 (Can kill infinite Soldiers, loses after killing 7-10 Officers)

If we assume a more intelligent strategy put all the monks at the top. Monk 4 kills all the soldiers, monk 5 kills all the officers after that, and the other monks get together the supplies for a keg party to celebrate.

[GoC]

*snip*

Wow!
So monks 4, 5 and Abbot all survive if there are 300 or less attacking soldiers!
Very good work!:smallcool:

How about 400 soldiers and 20 officers?

[Hasivel]

Huh? That's not what I came up with at all. Unless you mean my pointing out that putting more than one monk on the same floor they can do better. In that case they can handle infinite soldiers and officers.

In fact my early ordering is totally meaningless, although I was trying to see who fit best where. You could take out every monk except the last and the results would be identical.

[GoC]

Well the build you have kills an infinite number of soldiers but there are only 300 soldiers. The 300th soldier is killed by monk5 and after that there's only officers. Monk5 can kill officers for all eternity thus he, the Abbot and monk4 all survive.