The Civ IV Combat System

[Aquiantus]

Is that why it feels like Thermopolye every time you invade a city?

[snepp]

SpencerH, no mention of artillery or bombers being used? No tanks sprinkled in that contain a collateral damage upgrade?

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by snepp
SpencerH, no mention of artillery or bombers being used? No tanks sprinkled in that contain a collateral damage upgrade?

From the AI side no, they were in the napoleonic era (at best). I used arty but didnt bother to build aircraft.

I found that modern armor with the collateral damage upgrade were effective although I think I lost one or two of those too.

Initially I thought the problem was that I had not bothered to use arty at all when attacking the first city (where I lost 3-4 mech inf/ tanks). OK, I thought, mea culpa. All subsequent attacks though were done after reducing the city defense to 0 and I still lost way too many too many times. These werent even cannon and riflemen.

After reading some of the last posts I have a hypothesis about what happened. The AI had 3-4 catapults in each city along with grenadiers/spearmen etc. When I attacked a city I would often end up with some damage to my mech inf and tank units via 'first strike' from the cats. DeepO's post suggests that any damage to an attacker inordinantly negatively effects the chances of the unit (whether modern or not) winning the subsequent combat.

I can see that I'll be mod-ing the combat strengths for civ4 (as I had to for civ2 and 3).

[DeepO]

Originally posted by BgT
Numbers in my last post are wrong, I found the mistake. I think it's correct now. My conclusions are, however, correct. Small changes can lead to big difference.

Tank 9/10.4
Maceman 5.6/8.5
----------------------
25.7% for Tank

Tank 9/10.4
Maceman 5.3/8.1
----------------------
41.1% for Tank

Tank 10/11.6
Maceman 5.6/8.5
----------------------
64.2% for Tank

Tank has 28 max Strength. In this particular case Strength 9 gives him 25.7% chance to win. Only ONE point more, Strength 10, gives him 64.2% chance to win. Is this possible? Seems it is.

Ok, now I only have to implement First strike chances and then le'ts got to war.

This looks right to me: I said 15%, you're calculating 25%. Not that much of a difference, my guesses aren't perfect either

So, your tank only had about 1 in 4 chance of winning, meaning that in similar situations you would have lost 3 times as much as you would win. I think you should have been complaining when the maceman would have died

(Not really, BTW. Getting through to such a personal experience like this will vastly improve your combat abilities.)

As to the small differences: yes, this is something I already mentioned but perhaps didn't stress enough. In many cases, units which only have ~10% difference in strength end up at perfect 50% odds. If the difference changes by one more percentage, you get a leap in odds to 40% or something close. This leads to 'flat' chances for many battles, so that you can't assume your tank is exactly 0.1 strength higher and thus should always win.

However, if you have a unit which is not at full health, those leaps are quite unpredictable... sometimes, resting for one turn to gain a little extra health can make all the difference (as it was in your case). Sometimes, the little bit of damage from a cat can make the difference as well...

BTW, if you've got a working xls sheet, please post it. I'm sure many will like it!

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by SpencerH
After skimming the first page I thought I'd interject Schrödinger's wave equation into the mix of calculations but then I thought why bother. In any case, I still lost full strength gunships to knights yesterday and also lost a bunch of mech inf and tanks to grenadiers despite removing the city bonuses, so I guess the spearman v tank isnt quite as fixed as I'd hoped.

Tthis has nothing to with spearman vs tank problems: a spearman was one tenth of a tank. The cases your describing have, even in the best of possibilities, only a difference in strength of a factor 2. In reality it will most likely be lower: grenadiers with city defend promotions, fortified for more than 5 turns will be considerable enemies up until MA get around.

Collateral damage is your friend if you face highly promoted units. Even if it will only show like you hit a grenadier from strength 12 to strength 11, the effect is doubled because you both reduce his strength, as well as his hp. Get right beneath such a leap like mentioned in previous post, and your odds will rise dramitically.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by SpencerH
After reading some of the last posts I have a hypothesis about what happened. The AI had 3-4 catapults in each city along with grenadiers/spearmen etc. When I attacked a city I would often end up with some damage to my mech inf and tank units via 'first strike' from the cats. DeepO's post suggests that any damage to an attacker inordinantly negatively effects the chances of the unit (whether modern or not) winning the subsequent combat.

fs only happen when directly attacking a unit, though. So the fs on the cats(and these are promotions you can spot!) didn't hit you unless you were attacking a cat. You don't lose tanks to cats, you lose them to grenadiers

further, the fs are not a certain chance: it is not because you are guaranteed 2 fs (because the description reads 2-4) that you will always hit twice! It will give you the chance of excaping, which leads to higher strength after the battle. fs don't increase the combat odds drastically, they only give a winning unit a higher strength for the next battle it needs to fight as it won't be wounded that badly.

I can see that I'll be mod-ing the combat strengths for civ4 (as I had to for civ2 and 3).

Well, you are of course free to mod as you wish. However, consider this: Some of us have played with the numbers for over 2 years now. And so far, no great imbalances are found: it all ties in nicely in the game. If you want to change the combat system without changing the way combat works, you are looking forward to years of tweaking to get it right again, so please consider waiting a bit before you know what's actually 'wrong'. You might find you don't need to mod anything after all

DeepO

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by DeepO

Tthis has nothing to with spearman vs tank problems: a spearman was one tenth of a tank. The cases your describing have, even in the best of possibilities, only a difference in strength of a factor 2. In reality it will most likely be lower: grenadiers with city defend promotions, fortified for more than 5 turns will be considerable enemies up until MA get around.

DeepO

It has everything to do with the spearman v tank issue! The relative strengths of units from warrior to modern armour is much too gentle a slope. I realize that this is done so that the first player to modern weapons doesnt immediately obliterate the other players, but as it stands now there is very little incentive to an arms race at all. This is especially ironic since warfare has become a much more critical component than in previous civ's (at least it has in my games so far). Unlike every other civ/smac game I've now had to build stacks of units in every city in order to defend against AI stacks. There are better solutions to this problem than narrowing the odds of victory between units. It is ridiculous to me to set the combat effectiveness of grenadiers (under any conditions) to be half that of mech inf - regular modern inf, OK but not a unit based on 18th- 19th century tech. I'm not looking for realism, but I am looking for a better reason to acquire techs.

[DeepO]

That's so strange about this: the system has been tweaked so that results lay farther apart. Nobody ever complained about a tank losing to an inf, yet now you are complaining about a tank losing from a grenadier? It doesn't make sense...

sure, they were from another era, but who cares. If you really need the realism element, pretend that their grenades are updated to anti-tank grenades of some sort. Made of depleted uranium if you want. The point is that you will never see a full health, unpromoted, strength 2 warrior (the equivalent of Civ 3's spear) get beaten by a full health, unpromoted, strength 24 tank. It's all in the promotions, and how these are used. And the results are a lot less random than last time, you only need to make the time to figure out how they work.

And believe me, if you create more of a gap between the units (say a tank becoming 100 strength, the grenadier to 20, warriors still at 2), the balance is gone. You are forcing everyone into an arms race, and CIV turns into a wargame. A bad one too, as it is then a wargame which requires you to build stuff you don't want to build.

Better idea: mod the graphics, so that in certain ages the graphics of units changes. Warriors of strength 2 could become militia in the modern era, still of strength too but looking updated.

DeepO

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by DeepO
That's so strange about this: the system has been tweaked so that results lay farther apart. Nobody ever complained about a tank losing to an inf, yet now you are complaining about a tank losing from a grenadier? It doesn't make sense...

From what I've seen so far I'm sure that the combat system in civ4 has been more than 'tweaked' and I applaud the effort.

Inf should have a chance to defeat tanks all modern inf units carry anti-tank weapons of some sort. I can assure you, however, that you can lob grenades at something even as old as an M113 all day long and you wont effect anyone inside it (aside from deafening them).

sure, they were from another era, but who cares. If you really need the realism element, pretend that their grenades are updated to anti-tank grenades of some sort. Made of depleted uranium if you want.

I've always disagreed with that reasoning. If they havent discovered the tech then they shouldnt have the abilites. Thats the point of the tech race.

The point is that you will never see a full health, unpromoted, strength 2 warrior (the equivalent of Civ 3's spear) get beaten by a full health, unpromoted, strength 24 tank. It's all in the promotions, and how these are used. And the results are a lot less random than last time, you only need to make the time to figure out how they work.

I agree that things may improve as I get used to the new system.

And believe me, if you create more of a gap between the units (say a tank becoming 100 strength, the grenadier to 20, warriors still at 2), the balance is gone. You are forcing everyone into an arms race, and CIV turns into a wargame. A bad one too, as it is then a wargame which requires you to build stuff you don't want to build.

I made those changes with civ2 and 3 (as did other mod-ers) without effecting other aspects of the gameplay. Civ is indeed not a wargame but so far I've found warfare to be far more critical in civ4 than previous versions. Hell, I retired from my second game (ONLY ON NOBLE) because I was unprepared for the effectiveness (size/coordination) of the AI attack. Thats never happened to me before. IMO it was comparable to a human opponent in MP!

Better idea: mod the graphics, so that in certain ages the graphics of units changes. Warriors of strength 2 could become militia in the modern era, still of strength too but looking updated.

DeepO

That was done with earlier versions too. It helps, but doesnt remove the underlying problem.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I made those changes with civ2 and 3 (as did other mod-ers) without effecting other aspects of the gameplay. Civ is indeed not a wargame but so far I've found warfare to be far more critical in civ4 than previous versions. Hell, I retired from my second game (ONLY ON NOBLE) because I was unprepared for the effectiveness (size/coordination) of the AI attack. Thats never happened to me before. IMO it was comparable to a human opponent in MP!

While I usually don't play many mods, I know there were a couple of excellent mods for Civ 2&3. And CIV should give modders a lot better opportunity at really making something different. So don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound like I say modding is bad or that you can't touch the numbers. I'm sure you can use the current system, and create something differently with it. But it surely is not going to be easy to balance it: if you change the strengths of units, you also need to tweak the tech costs of the techs unlocking them. Which means you will need to tweak the other techs as well... I've got some idea on how much trouble it took to balance everything the first time around, I'm a bit sceptical about mods appearing 2 weeks after release, which 'solve all the issues' so to speak

As to AI's ability to wage war: It most certainly is not Civ3. However, every AI can always be improved... Firaxis and Soren have shown before that they will patch the AI just like they patch the rest of the game, once more reports and a better insight into the game emerges. The current war AI still has a bit of a problem with taking cities, while it is excellent in pillaging. Also, some of the counter maneuvres it has can still be a lot improved upon, even if going in with a SoD is truely out of the question.

One of the main reason why the combat system has changed so dramatically is the use of collateral damage on cats. Suicide units for sure, but the little damage they do can have a large impact on the results of the game. Is it realistic? Not really. But man, does that work!

DeepO

[BgT]

Originally posted by DeepO
BTW, if you've got a working xls sheet, please post it. I'm sure many will like it!

DeepO

I have a working xls sheet that has first strikes implemtented. But only "full" first strikes, not the chances. So basically it works if you write
A: 4 fs
B: 2 fs
but not with 5-7 and similar. I still have to do that. I need that percentage, the probability that fs happens or not. I have no reason not to believe this probability is 0.5. So if unit has 5-7 fs, it would have
5 fs - 25%
6 fs - 50%
7 fs - 25%
What do you think (the coders could kindly give us the answer)?

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by DeepO

While I usually don't play many mods, I know there were a couple of excellent mods for Civ 2&3. And CIV should give modders a lot better opportunity at really making something different. So don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound like I say modding is bad or that you can't touch the numbers. I'm sure you can use the current system, and create something differently with it. But it surely is not going to be easy to balance it: if you change the strengths of units, you also need to tweak the tech costs of the techs unlocking them. Which means you will need to tweak the other techs as well... I've got some idea on how much trouble it took to balance everything the first time around, I'm a bit sceptical about mods appearing 2 weeks after release, which 'solve all the issues' so to speak

And with Civ IV it seems even more difficult as with the prior versions to get a good balance,
as, because of the OR-gates within the tree, it might be somehow easier to beeline for higher military tech levels.

[SpencerH]

One of the things I've been thinking about overnight are anti-tank and anti-aircraft upgrades for infantry or even arty (which was what was proposed with civ3 mods) as opposed to completely changing the attack/hp strengths.

[ThePlagueRat]

omg... I read a few posts, then the formulas started to look like glyphs. Now im dizzy and i need to play civ.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by SpencerH
One of the things I've been thinking about overnight are anti-tank and anti-aircraft upgrades for infantry or even arty (which was what was proposed with civ3 mods) as opposed to completely changing the attack/hp strengths.

anti-aircraft promotions have been talked about in the past... who knows, maybe for an expansion pack. They most certainly do not belong on regular infantry, though, why else would you build stingers?

Anti-tank on inf: that would go against the whole system. tanks are supposed to be inf-eaters when they encounter them in the open. Infs can receive the ambush promotion, which will give them a bonus against tanks, but making that any more powerful is going to unbalance things.

It's simple: tanks beat infs, infs beat heli's, heli's beat tanks. And artillery beats everything, but will die doing so. You can do a little about the odds through promotions, but if you change the underlying system by adding to the wrong kind of numbers (say give an inf an antitank bonus), you break the system... why would you build helicopters, if infs do the same thing and can be used for more roles? No... changing those kind of systems is even worse than throwing everything out and assigning new strengths to individual numbers. You would deplete it to a less richer system, instead of a richer one.

Again, I'm not saying there can't be mods made on CIV, and I'm sure many will add to gameplay tremendously. However you need to understand the system better before you can mod, and no-one can do so in less than 2 weeks time.

DeepO

[Proteus_MST]

Hm,
having an Anti Tank Promotion (of course not much, maybe 1-3 Steps with 15-20% increase each) wouldn´t be a bad step.
And it would even be realistic as Infantry against Tanks has much to do with training (especially true for WW2-Style battles)
The german Wehrmacht for example had a special booklet to train its soldiers in Anti Tank tactics, the so called "Panzerknackerfibel" which covered everything, from recognizing tank types and know their blind spots to tactics how you can use specialized and also makeshift weapons to take them out.
Here you can find some pages of the Panzerknackerfibel, as well as from some other manuals (like the Tiger and Pantherfibel). But it´s just an excerpt; I have the whole booklet somewhere on my Hard Disk, but I don´t know anymore, where I downloaded it from.

Ah, found a source,
this thread has links to all the Pages of the Panzerknackerfibel (look further down the thread, the postings from Claudio)

http://63.99.108.76/forums/index.php?showtopic=9314

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
Hm,
having an Anti Tank Promotion (of course not much, maybe 1-3 Steps with 15-20% increase each) wouldn´t be a bad step.

I would be a good idea for a WWII mod... in mainstream CIV it won't get a place. If you have 3 stacking promotions for anti-tank (the first one is in, btw, it is called ambush), you need 3 stacking promotions for cover, pinch, etc. too. Too many promotions... the current system is so good because with few promotions it creates loads of possibilities.

DeepO

[Sirp]

Each round inflicts a fixed amount of damage. This damage is subtracted from the hitpoints, where hitpoints start at 100.

Do hitpoints in a battle always start at 100, or only if the unit is at full strength?

i.e. if I have a horse archer, normal strength 6.0, but it has been wounded half way, down to 3.0, does that mean that the horse archer's strength in a battle will be 3.0, with 100 hitpoints, or its strength in battle will be 3.0 AND it will only have 50 hitpoints?

-Sirp.

[Proteus_MST]

Hm I think it keeps track of you Hitpoints.
After all it has to do as your units heal over time (if you give them rest).
So I´d say, if your unit is at 50% strength prior to battle, it also starts the battle with 50% of its HP

[xxFlukexx]

Yeah, it keeps track of your hitpoints, you can see it in your combat log(ctr-tab then hit the combat log tab) whenever your injured unit gets into a fight.

We don't need an anti-tank promotion line, we need another helo to be on par with the modern armor. I guess you can just hit a tank with a stealth fighter then with your own modern tank or mech inf but that's hardly an effective counter.

I dunno why people are complaining about tanks rarely losing to spearman. You should be worried about not being able to kill cavalry(especially with pinch, and omg cossacks, don't expect to win many battles vs them) and modern armor being godlike in a 1v1 battle(I only need modern armor + SAM inf to take a city late game, air can take down city defenses + collateral damage, wish I had more unit types to play with in the end game)

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Sirp
Do hitpoints in a battle always start at 100, or only if the unit is at full strength?

Only when at full health. They will start at 50 if your unit is wounded to half.

I'm sorry, I haven't found time yet to correct that post in all details, I think I mention it somewhere but I'm not consistent. It's on my To Do list, though.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Fluke, use gunships against tanks and MA. That's the counter vs armor... and as they are in general upgraded from cavalry they can get very high promotion levels.

You don't need another unit, you just need to use what's there.

DeepO

[Sirp]

Originally posted by DeepO

Only when at full health. They will start at 50 if your unit is wounded to half.

Okay, so if I understand correctly, a horse archer who is wounded down to 3 strength is actually easier to defeat than a full-strength archer who has 3 strength?

Likewise, a knight wounded down to 3 strength is even weaker again.

-Sirp.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Sirp


Okay, so if I understand correctly, a horse archer who is wounded down to 3 strength is actually easier to defeat than a full-strength archer who has 3 strength?

Likewise, a knight wounded down to 3 strength is even weaker again.

-Sirp.

Yep, that's the idea. A 3-strength knight will nearly always lose against a 3-strength archer, even if their strengths might suggest the odds are about equal.

DeepO

[xxFlukexx]

Ha, whaddya know there's a thread about gunships vs tanks now.

Yeah, I know gunships vs tanks are great, but gunships vs modern armor? mehhhhh, that's a 40 vs 40 in power before promotions, but with promotions, the tank grabs the edge since it starts with 40 power. Tanks will win more vs their counter unit and that's not right imho. I figure that if you add in counter units then the counter should be harder so you need to have the correct units and not just more units to win a battle. The chopper does get a 25% withdraw I guess that should count for something, but after playing so much Civ3, anything less than 100% withdraw seems so weak.

Actually a new unit wouldn't be necessary like I first thought, just giving modern armor a -20% str vs helos would make them lose more vs helos. Helos die to pretty much anything that breathes on it and can't kill anything but tanks at the modern age so I think this would be fair.

Sirp: Yeah, that's one of the keys to learning how to attack cities successfully in Civ4. Bombard the city with catapults, then send a couple catapults on suicide missions vs the city and the rest of your units will slaughter what is left inside of the enemy city. The key is that even knocking off .5 hp off of a archer is a huge hit in the effectiveness of that archer.

[DeepO]

Fluke, by the time MA start to arrive, gunships would be at the 4th or 5th promotion. This can include ambush (+25% vs armor), but most importantly this can include a lot of fs. With fs, even if the base strength of both units is the same, the chance of the gunship winning is higher...

The whole point of MA is that they are hard to kill in the open without air support (and than I mean fighter support, as gunships are a landunit in CIV (the only that flies about them is the animation)). But a couple of bombruns, and any chopper or MA should have no problem in cleaning up. And if you don't have any air force, you are making a strategic mistake, but at least you can still suicide catapults, cannons, or arties. These are bet vs stacks anyway.

DeepO

[DeepO]

Originally posted by xxFlukexx
Ha, whaddya know there's a thread about gunships vs tanks now.

BTW, there were 2 gunship threads before you asked your question. This latest one is simply someone else starting the same topic again without doing a search first.

DeepO

[Tulthix]

Just my experience...

I just took a continent in a game last night on noble on an archipelago large map. The war was in the late 1700s to early 1800s.

My attack forces against a city were typically about:
1-2 tanks
1 marine
1 infantry
1 support carrier
3 fighters
2 destroyers

Cities were typically defended with:
2 rifleman
2 longbowmen
1 maceman
(sometimes a catapult)

I attacked with destroyers first to reduce cities defense bonus to 0% while I was moving up / healing my ground forces. Then I had carrier attack with fighters to wear down the better defenders to near 50%. Then attack with the ground forces, and city taken.

I took about 10 cities in this manner without losing a single unit. So, its been my experience that with a tech advantage you really do have overwhelming superiority as long as you really use it to your advantage.

P.s. It is just wrong how destructive it is to move a pillaging gunship behind enemy lines that you have a big tech advantage over.

[Tiberius]

removed. wrong thread

[khumak]

I think the combat system is pretty well balanced currently. It annoys me if I lose a unit in a battle where I had an advantage but I so far I have NEVER lost a battle where I had a huge advantage. Most of the complaints I see are people *****ing about losing those fights where they have 3:2 or so odds. Sorry but you're going to lose some of those. Tough luck.

Careful specialization of your units and good use of bombardment and collateral damage usually means you can fight multiple wars without ever losing a single unit. In my last game most of my conquest happened towards the end of the game after I had Modern Armor. ALL of the other civs had Infantry or better defending their cities. I conquered 3 entire continents and never lost a single unit. Why? Because a MA with 3 city attack and 2 or 3 first strike promotions just flat out doesn't lose against even mechanized infantry fortified in a city provided you reduce city defenses to 0% and bomb every unit in the city to 50% before attacking.