Archer Killed Modern Armor!!!?!?!

[Akaoz]

Oi! I don't build paper tig... tanks!

[Kataphraktoi]

Modern units SHOULD dominate. Apparently, I read somewhere that in WW2 or something, a group of cavalry/non-modern infantry got wiped out by tanks. If you fall behind that far in the tech race, you should be wiped out.

parts the russian army, equipin cossacks units, were essentially mass murdered. they were gunned down with virtually no chances. the whole russian army in fact,using tanks,machine guns and the like was behind that the entire operation was a desperate battle against overwhelmingly superior units,intiul the t-34 came out to give the soviets some hardware advanatge,and unfortunalty for them the deployment of said t-34 was poor,with very high german kill scores for various tank aces

now someone will corect me with a much better picture,but you get the idea

[LordShiva]

We have a bunch of military jokes in India along the following lines (I'll substitute the name of the neighbouring country the jokes involve for a more generic one )

Q: How do you stop tanks from country X?
A: Shoot the people pushing them.

Q: How do you sink a battleship from country X?
A: Put it in water.

Promoted archers can take out tank-pushers, no problem

[evizaer]

Some of you have absolutely no imagination.

It's absolutely concievable that a longbowman company could take out a cadre of tanks. The longbowman isn't going to stand there in the open and shoot at the tank and let the tank shoot at it. That's sheer stupidity. The longbowmen would lay in wait next to the road or the path of the enemy approach (tanks make a LOT of noise) and prepare an ambush. They would then pop up out of the blue next to the tanks and kill the commanders/officers that are in the open before jumping onto the tanks and shooting the occupants. The tanks won't be able to do anything at this point, because they'd end up having to blow their own up in order to shoot at the longbowmen running between and on top of the tanks. If one of the longbowmen can figure out how to fire the tank's big gun, then he could probably take out other tanks...

[LordShiva]

Except, tanks have machine guns that would rip any number of archers guts out.

[Senethro]

Close thread. Now. No discussion of any worth will come of this. The OP is clueless and the rest of you should know better.

[Kc7mxo]

It's absolutely concievable that a longbowman company could take out a cadre of tanks.

No, actually, it isn't.

[ProfessorPhobos]

I only have to dispute the "Medieval era soldiers would have no idea how to defeat a tank" argument.

Because, basically, just because they don't have the tech, doesn't mean they're stupid. The Kingdom of Archery might not be able to produce firearms, but they'll have reports from merchants, missionaries, and diplomats from the Land of Tanks. They'll know what tanks are, and despite the odds, even primitively equipped forces, with the right guerilla tactics, could have some chance at victory. Italy v. Ethiopia, frex. Doesn't happen too often, but it does occasionally happen.

Since it's such a rare occurrence in game, I'm willing to chalk it up to sheer badassitude on the part of the low-tech defenders. Remember, CivIV battles are extremely abstracted- a single attack is representative of days, weeks or months of fighting across a large area. It could be that the archer guys attacked supply depots or barracks with the armor crews at night and just slaughtered all the soft chewy centers of the tanks while they were playing Scrabble.

It doesn't necessarily mean those archers stood in volley formation and fought the tanks directly; medieval tactics vs. modern tech. That'd be stupid, and no matter how technologically primitive a society, one shouldn't assume they're morons.

Even so, modern stuff should almost always beat out the ancient, as it takes a truly extreme level of cunning and luck for poorly equipped forces to take out superior ones. It's a good thing this kind of event is rare...

[Zinegata]

I have to somewhat object to the notion that giving ancient units a chance against modern units is good game design. Gameplay in Civilization, to a large extent, revolves around the balance between domestic production (the "Builder" approach) and the military (the "Momentum" approach). If a player is able to get the Modern Armor technology while his/her rivals are still building archers, then the said player should be able to overrun his enemies with little difficulty. Being able to slaughter the enemy easily is his reward for being able to play the "Builder" game to its fullest and thus achieve a truly astonishing technological lead over his enemies.

After all, the whole point of Builder play is to risk a weak military early in the game to gain an overwhelming economic advantage in the end game. This is a route fraught with peril, as the Builder might be overwhelmed before his/her economic advantage could be brought to bear. Thus, for the surviving Builder, the end game is the moment wherein he is supposed to shine. Giving the A.I. a "fighting chance" when it has utterly neglected improving its technology would detract from the Builder's moment, not to mention being unfair. It also shows that the A.I. has not been programmed to do what it should be doing instead - which is to be competetive enough so it is not forced to fight such a lopsided battle (tanks vs archers) in the first place!

I mean, truly, I cannot recall one instance in which I had to fight archers using tanks in Civilization II. At the very least, in the highest difficulty levels, the A.I. had managed to field armies of mustketmen or riflemen. Yet in new incarnations of Civilization, Civilization III in particular, ancient units still proliferate the battlefield, even when a civilization's technology has advanced far beyond the production of mere spearmen. Is it really so difficult to give a way for the A.I. to upgrade its units?

Please note though, that I only say this because I truly feel that this is one issue that the Firaxis development team should really change their paradigm on. They should not compromise the combat system and hope that players simply create "romantic" explanations for flukey combat results. They should instead tackle the real problem, which is to make the A.I. competetive enough so that it is not forced into lopsided positions in the first place. Making it impossible for the player to put the A.I. in a lopsided position (as was the case in Civ III) is a poor game design decision as it limits the possible strategies the player can employ in the game. After all, if all the "risky" approaches (i.e. focusing almost purely on your economy and technology) are infeasible, then why take them in the first place? Limiting the number of strategies one can employ in a strategy game is not good game design!

On another note, making a more sensible combat system (such as the one in Civ II, which practically never created flukey results) would relieve the burden from "romantic" gamers. I'm really starting to feel sorry for them given how they're having to create rather outlandish explanations on how archers can kill tanks -_-;;;

I must say though, that the best explanation - the archer is a "modern but poorly-equipped guerilla unit", could have been implemented in-game. All ancient units, for example, might magically transform into an armed rabble with a different graphic upon the discovery of modern armor. However, this still really doesn't help solve the bigger issue at hand, which is to make the A.I. competetive.

Note though, that "making the A.I. more competetive" doesn't necessarily mean making it "smarter". I think giving it massive production bonuses, especially at higher levels, would be enough to make it competetive. And I think humans would appreciate beating a "cheating" A.I. rather than being forced into a particular strategy so that the A.I. has a chance. I think beating the A.I. who cheats using methods that are fair and square is more fun than being forced to play in a handicap match.

Anyway, I am still buying Civ IV, and I do think I'll enjoy it (unless the combat dice are again loaded. I swear, the ones Civ III use have GOT to be loaded -_-). I love the concept of promotions and positional warfare, and I do think that a well-positioned unit with the right promotions should be able to win even against severe odds (although an archer, even with all the advantages, shouldn't be able to win against something so advanced like modern armor! I thus hope it's just a rare occurence). Moreover, it seems to give an awful lot of options for the empire builder, with all the juicy improvement tiles. I think unlike Civ III, I'll actually have fun playing this one, despite the annoyance of seeing archers in an age of tanks ^_^. However, Civ IV might be the last game where I (and perhaps other players )find this tolerable, so I do hope Firaxis alters its design paradigm so I can keep on playing the newest versions of Civ ^_^

Edit: Also, a piece of historical Civ trivia: One of Civilization II's main design objectives was to eliminate flukey combat results (see the Designer's Notes section in the manual). Brian admitted that Civ I, more often than people liked, had the tendency of letting a Phalanx win against a battleship. They thus specifically design a system that, to a large extent, prevented such wacky results from happening. It, in fact, worked so well that I don't think anyone ever complained about the system. The fact that Civ III abandoned this design milestone really annoyed me to no end. Thank goodness Civ IV seems to be a step in restoring what we already had in Civ II while making improvements to boot.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by Cataphract887


parts the russian army, equipin cossacks units, were essentially mass murdered. they were gunned down with virtually no chances. the whole russian army in fact,using tanks,machine guns and the like was behind that the entire operation was a desperate battle against overwhelmingly superior units,intiul the t-34 came out to give the soviets some hardware advanatge,and unfortunalty for them the deployment of said t-34 was poor,with very high german kill scores for various tank aces

now someone will corect me with a much better picture,but you get the idea

completely erroneous picture of russian cavalry use in ww2. it is polish who had to use cavalry en-masse as tanks substitute. they had no choice.

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/cavalry/

also, consider the fact that russian cavalry wiped out swaths of german troops under moscow in 1941 counterofensive. also, very effective in cutting down enemy units in flight or retreat (one incident outside a concentration camp - inmates went out of the gates the next morning only to find the whole field covered in german corpses - intercepted by russian cavalry during the night as they were retreating).
as for uberpanzers, t-34 effectively won the war, german UU or not. it is still considered the most versatile and successful ww2 tank. and once there was a showdown, at kursk, i do not remember german 'tank aces' carrying the day...

[Proteus_MST]

Re: Archer Killed Modern Armor!!!?!?!

Originally posted by KoBushi
I attacked a city the other day with a veteran fully healed Modern Armor...

City had only Longbowmen in it... my Modern Armor was destroyed by the first longbowman group...

Okay that is just IDIOTIC . I don't care if the tank operators were ASLEEP and the archers volleyed 10,000 arrows/minute at it... it wouldn't be damaged in the least.

Civ3 fixed this, how did Civ4 drop the ball?

Looks like you should watch Rambo II
to see what a lone Archer can accomplish.

Now think about having a whole company of them

[Peets]

I played Battlefield 2 at my friend place saturday night before we went out. I tried to take out a tank with my machine gun but failed each time Seems like I had to bring arrows instread of bullets!

[Zinegata]

Originally posted by LaRusso

completely erroneous picture of russian cavalry use in ww2. it is polish who had to use cavalry en-masse as tanks substitute. they had no choice.

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/cavalry/

also, consider the fact that russian cavalry wiped out swaths of german troops under moscow in 1941 counterofensive. also, very effective in cutting down enemy units in flight or retreat (one incident outside a concentration camp - inmates went out of the gates the next morning only to find the whole field covered in german corpses - intercepted by russian cavalry during the night as they were retreating).
as for uberpanzers, t-34 effectively won the war, german UU or not. it is still considered the most versatile and successful ww2 tank. and once there was a showdown, at kursk, i do not remember german 'tank aces' carrying the day...

... And actually, most stories of Polish cavalry charging German tanks were myths. German propaganda, however, highlighted the one true incident of it occuring to show how their "modern" army was overruning the underarmed Poles. Western historians tend to repeat this propaganda. Polish historians, on the other hand, note that their cavalry performed quite well during the German invasion, especially since their cavalry also had tank support. (Poland had a few tanks at the start of the war, though their quality was quite good, which were mainly assigned to the cavalry divisions)

... Also, Russian cavalry rarely, if ever, performed cavalry charges "wiping out swathes of the German army". World War II cavalry mainly fought on foot, using horses only as transport. The wide use of artillery made cavalry charges impractical at best and suicidal at worse. In fact, though cavalry would still be in use by 1945 (and many years after), the last cavalry charge ever made happened in 1943, two years before the end of the war. Interestingly, the last charge would be made by Italians!

Finally, the T-34 was hardly a perfect unit. While more powerful than early Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs, it was outmatched by the newer Panzer IV, and totally outclassed by the Panther and the Tiger tanks fielded by the Germans later in the war. The T-34's gun, in fact, is not powerful enough to destroy a Panther in one shot. The Panther's gun, on the other hand, can easily destroy a T-34 in one shot, and it has a longer range to boot.

The fact that the Russians won at Kursk (even though Germany was using many of these new Panthers and Tigers) was a testament to the Red Army's maniacal courage rather than the quality of their equipment. Their courage was such that T-34 drivers at one point were ramming their enemy counterparts!

Really, I have to say that Firaxis needs to make sure their combat system doesn't produce flukey results in the next Civ game, or at the very least they should convert ancient units to a poorly armed modern counterparts when the times leave them behind. Threads like these and the misconceptions they spread wouldn't happen in the first place if they did it -_-;;;

[Dr,ape]

take a step back, and see the game as a game, not an alternate reality. Games have rules, and these rules don't necessarily reflect the cold hard real world. Why would the bank in the game of Monopoly have unlimited funds?? It just does. Accept it, then you have a game; Question it, then you have an endless philosophical debate about something other than the game.

The horse is dead; it has been dead since 1991 -- so stop beating on it.

[Saint Marcus]

Warriors with 65535 power!

Maybe if he's got a full set of epic gear...

oh, and nerf Longbowmen