Designate Defender

[petermarkab]

I think Civ 4 should allow the player to designate which unit from a stack defends first.

This could be expanded to have a 'defence order', and the player could even specify which type of unit should defend specific attacks.

eg. you would want an archer to defend against horse, but not against infantry.

Peter

[Max Sinister]

Uhh, that'd be a lot of micromanagement...

[General Ludd]

Re: Designate Defender

Originally posted by petermarkab

eg. you would want an archer to defend against horse, but not against infantry.

Why? Presuming that the combat works the same as in other civs, the archer has a low defense value and would make a poor defender regardless of the attacker. Why not just automaticaly defend with the unit that will give the best chance of success? ie. highest defense value with modifiers taken into consideration, and highest hitpoints.

[Boris Godunov]

Since civ doesn't work on a rock-paper-scissor type of combat, this would be pointless unless you were to introduce such a combat model to the game, which I think is unneccesary.

As it is, Civ automatically selects the strongest unit first to defend against attacks, so it seems pointless. The only instance I can think of where it would be beneficial would be if you had a ton of obsolete units protecting a city, in addition to a couple modern ones, and you wanted to "wear down" the enemy attack with cannon fodder before switching to the good units. That's all well and good, but you can achieve the same effect by just sending a stack of the obsolete units out to attack the invading army. Of course, this also seems to be a dubious tactic, as it could just provide a bunch of upgrades to elite status for the enemy.

[Senethro]

I really don't get what is with all the micro hate...

What would be wrong with leaving the designate defender option in the game but otherwise just going with the strongest unit?
In SMAC there are quite often situations where your defense is hopeless and you are best to designate a redundant or damaged defender as fluff to soak up the enemy attacks. You might do this in defense of your cities or when awaiting a counter attack outside one of theirs.

[alva]

I really don't get what is with all the micro hate...

It's not hate of MM, it's just that there's already plenty of it.
My current game on a standard map is already taking in excess of 70 hours ( though deity game ) and is definitaly not yet finished. There's only so much time a man can and wants to spend on a game, in other words, I want it over with.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Senethro
In SMAC there are quite often situations where your defense is hopeless and you are best to designate a redundant or damaged defender as fluff to soak up the enemy attacks. You might do this in defense of your cities or when awaiting a counter attack outside one of theirs.

If the defense is hopeless (i.e., you're going to lost the city anyway), this doesn't make much sense. Either withdraw the more valuable units to fight another day, or let them all get killed, since that will happen anyway. I just don't see the advantage of adding the option. It won't make any strategic or tactical difference in the game.

[vee4473]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


If the defense is hopeless (i.e., you're going to lost the city anyway), this doesn't make much sense. Either withdraw the more valuable units to fight another day, or let them all get killed, since that will happen anyway. I just don't see the advantage of adding the option. It won't make any strategic or tactical difference in the game.

Hence the word "option". I think that unless an idea is ridiculous, it is worthy of being considered as an option.
Arguing for less worthwhile options to be put in a game isn't something I expect to hear from a group of gamers! ha

I think it is a good idea. It could lead to saving the lives of units, because you can designate the best defender as the first line of defense rather than hoping the computer doesn't plow through your less capable defenders before getting to the unit that could have repelled the attack.

And as afar as the "hopeless" thing, I think we have all had experiences where we were in battles we never thought could have been won, yet they were...so no battle is hopeless.

[alva]

How far would you take it though? Would you want to choose the second in defense? Should you be able to switch a defender while the AI is attacking your city and you just lost a round/unit?

[patcon]

I prefer leaving things as they are - my first unit against your best unit, my second unit against your best surviving unit, etc.

Here's the problem as I see it with choosing your defender. What happens if I have 2 attackers - a Modern Infantry (attack 16) and a Cavalry (attack 6) - attacking your 2 defenders - an Infantry (defense 10) and a Warrior (defense 1)? Clearly if I attack with my MI first, you'll want to defend with you Warrior first and save your Infantry to defend against the Cav. But knowing that you'll send the Warrior out to defend first, I'll switch my first attacking unit to the Cav. But knowing this, you'll switch to defend with the Infantry, so I'll switch to attack with the MI. Are we engaged in an infinite feedback loop of forced indecision? Is it a total crap-shoot where both sides have to try to guess what the other side will do based on how we think they think that we think. (I'm starting to feel like Vizzini during the battle of wits with the Dread Pirate Roberts in The Princess Bride or Custer trying to decide if listen to his Indian muleskinner and go down into the valley in Little Big Man - both great movies, BTW.)

So who has to declare first and who gets to react? Hockey fans may recognize this as the coach's problem in sending out players for a face-off to secure favorable matchups. In hockey, the solution is that the home team gets the last change - that's the "home ice advantage". (Gosh, I miss hockey.)
Would the defender always get the last choice? Would the "home team" (civ in whose territory the battle is taking place) always get the last choice? Would the last choice alternate for each skirmish (ala the alternating possession rule for jump-ball situations in basketball - a lousy rule in B-ball. if you ask me)?

Forget the subterfuge, let's just rumble! My best against your best and let the best (and luckiest - damn you, RNG) civ win.
That being said, I have been known to hold back my best attackers when facing a good defender and send in a few weaker expendable units first in an attempt to knock off a few hit points before they die.

[vee4473]

The only reason that I responded to this idea was because I have had the experience of NOT having the comp choose the best unit for defense first.

But, I don't think this is something really worthy of a lengthy debate. It is a valid option, and as such you dont have to use it.

Just as having city governors is indeed a valid option even though I and others would never use it because we don't "trust" the governors. Same with the "automate settlers" option.

In those cases, you hand control of your cities/settlers to the comp, but have the option to override should you choose.

Why not in this case too? You can take this "option" thing too far, but in this case i think it is fine and no more ludicrous than having the option to allow the comp to control city queues or settlers by saying "sure, go ahead and decide what to do next"...this just works in reverse...in this case you choose to tell the comp "no way am i letting you decide who's first to defend my city!"

If you don't trust the comp to do it, give the player the option to drill down to the 73rd line of defense of he/she so chooses. It doesn't mean you have to play that way.

[vee4473]

oh, and one last thing....I think arguing against this option is ridiculous for a STRATEGY game.

If you don't see any generalized use for this strategic option, it doesn't meant hat there won't be a use for it should the armchair general see fit in one of his games.

I mean, think about it, We are talking about a strategy game that often involves war, and you actually have people wanting to exclude the option of deciding who defends what and in what order depending on the situation.

[vee4473]

Originally posted by patcon
Are we engaged in an infinite feedback loop of forced indecision? Is it a total crap-shoot where both sides have to try to guess what the other side will do based on how we think they think that we think.

Welcome to the world of strategy. That's what it is about alot of the time.

Your scenario seems to support the choice of defenders.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by vee4473
Hence the word "option". I think that unless an idea is ridiculous, it is worthy of being considered as an option.
Arguing for less worthwhile options to be put in a game isn't something I expect to hear from a group of gamers! ha

Actually, throwing in a plethora of options that have little impact on the gameplay is a good way to kill a game. See Moo3 for evidence.

I think it is a good idea. It could lead to saving the lives of units, because you can designate the best defender as the first line of defense rather than hoping the computer doesn't plow through your less capable defenders before getting to the unit that could have repelled the attack.

Um, but the game already chooses the best defensive unit available to fight first.

And as afar as the "hopeless" thing, I think we have all had experiences where we were in battles we never thought could have been won, yet they were...so no battle is hopeless.

I wasn't the one who brought up "hopeless" battles. But the above requires precognition, at any rate. The point was whether or not a player [/i]believes[/i] the battle is hopeless. I don't see why designating a defender is going to help in that situation.

And think of how much it will slow down the game, especially MP games! Having to wait for your opponent to choose his defending unit...ugh!

Honestly, if you're going to take the time to do that, I think it would be better just to have tactical battles instead of unit-vs-unit fights. That would be more realistic, at any rate, and far more interesting/rewarding for the player.

[Senethro]

Firstly: by "hopeless" I meant that no unit could defend sucessfully. For example you have in a defending stack: 3x 1.1.1 and 1x 10.3.3 vs an attacking stack of 3x 30.3.1

An utterly bizarre scenario that I've somewhat exaggerated (but one that might just appear in SMAC). IN this situation you would want your 10.3.3 to survive the fight as he could destroy all the attackers should he live.

In addition, the way SMAC did it was to define the defender in the players own turn. They would not choose the defender in real time during a TCP/IP game.