Unrealistic Combat: What side are you on?

[LordShiva]

Yes, you missed those points, and about two hundred minor variations of each.

[Tiberius]

Originally posted by Mergle

If your victory relied on one dice roll, it wasn't perfectly played.

Except when your opponent plays perfectly as well (or equally bad, as you wish).

How exactly is a combat system based on luck (with a bit of an exxageration here) strategic ?? Can you explain me that? I thought that a strategic play means that you have the proper technology which enables you to build the proper unit at the proper place in the proper moment. Where exactly fits in luck here?

When I lose with a superior unit to a weaker one, I wonder why did I put all that effort in researching that tech that enabled the advanced unit.

But LordShiva is right. This has been discussed to death. Let it rest in peace.

[baronzilch]

Originally posted by Tiberius


Except when your opponent plays perfectly as well (or equally bad, as you wish).

How exactly is a combat system based on luck (with a bit of an exxageration here) strategic ?? Can you explain me that? I thought that a strategic play means that you have the proper technology which enables you to build the proper unit at the proper place in the proper moment. Where exactly fits in luck here?

When I lose with a superior unit to a weaker one, I wonder why did I put all that effort in researching that tech that enabled the advanced unit.

But LordShiva is right. This has been discussed to death. Let it rest in peace.

Luck is not limited to combat rolls. Starting positions (river/bonus food etc.), the possibility of gaining key resources as they are revealed through tech and barbarian activity are all very much luck based. Therefore tech leads can be luck based as well.

Strategy is about planning, sure, but it's also about the execution of contingencies for expected occurences AND reactions to unexpected turns of events.

You put the effort into tech because your units will most of the time beat inferior units. However, a clever player with proper fortifications/feinting/baiting - tactics - has a chance against a strategically inferior yet technologically superior foe. This is how it should be in a strategy game.

Use the same level of caution, planning and execution as the spearman and your tanks may lose a battle or two, but you will always win the war. This is also how it should be.

That being said, I am sympathetic to the immersion issues. Warrior/sword/bow, etc. graphics should change to a "guerrilla" type unit at the industrial era (no power change, just representation). It would not be a ton of work for Firaxis and it's clear their is a contingent of players that would really appreciate this.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Tiberius
How exactly is a combat system based on luck (with a bit of an exxageration here) strategic ?? Can you explain me that?

Luck has been a factor in every war since the dawn of man. Modern countries spend a fortune on planning, doctrine and training to minimise it, but it still creeps in. Would Waterloo have been different if Napoleon had been feeling well that day? Would the Battle of Britain have been won had the accidental bombing of a German city not led Hitler to order the shifting target priority?

The strategic layer of the game is in ensuring that you apply enough force in the right area to reduce the impact of luck. Civ is a big enough game that you'll never win or lose on the toss of a single dice, all your decisions made up to that point have contributed to the outcome.

[Firebird]

2 gp from me:

I know, I know it is a dead horse, and I probably am going to anoy someone...

I had my doubts about the civ4-combatsystem (f.ex. the introduction of a single strength instead of attack and defense), but after seeing it in action I like it. I feel it is very realistic. It's great that I see the odds, and I have never felt cheated upon.

If my tank looses to a spearman, which has yet to happen, it doesn't bother me the least. I once lost a gunship to a horsearcher. Oh, I can swear and say "You lucky b......", but I have no problems thinking there's a storm grounding my gunships, and the brilliant tactical leader of the horsearchers has used the cover of darkness, rain, fog and bushland to sneak in and surprise the overconfident crews of the gunships. It happens so rarely I can easely accept this, and to me it even deepens the imersion into the game.

They can make a checkbox at the start of a new game to alow "sure wins", but don't make it default or, god forbid, a hardcoded part of the game, thank you very much. I want my weaker (even much weaker) enemy to have some chance at resisting. I might mod all kind of things in civ4, but one thing I will not do, is take away the chance of loosing or whinning against the odds. I am all 100% with Sid on that point. I cheared my forgotten warriors as they defended a city (on plains) against an enemy cavalry (and then I hurried out and upgraded them).

Those two occations are the only ones I remember in civ4, where the odds where overwhelming (spelling?), but they added a lot to the games for me. In all other figths the outcome was never that unlikely and my perception is purely one of fair results.

And luck (by way of weather, relative movements between opponents that can't see each other, choice of units fielded in case you don't know what the enemy has, a badly timed guerilla-attack on your supply-depot etc.) can and will always be able to impact results in a real war although one can (as mentioned earlier) try and plan to minimize the effect. That is exactly what is required in civ4, and I like that.

If peoply has a problem imagining (spelling?) causes for unlikely outcomes (any outcomes actually) they miss out on the best part of civ (to me, that is). Try reading this for example:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=88714

Born out of a game of civ3! Amazing to me it is (sorry for the yoda-thing there). That's what's going on in my head with every game, although I am not that good at writing it down.

Enjoy!

Best regards

Firebird

[Mergle]

Originally posted by Drachasor


Depends on the game. Early on it might be just one bad combat.

Though, usually you need a string of bad luck to upset a well-played game however.

-Drachasor

True (I just won a game by spaceship where Montezuma should have killed me in the ancient age but my heroic warrior fluked victory against two of his quenchas (whatever they're called)). But if it's that early on, you can't really say that you would have won but for that roll - who knows what would have happened later.

[Mergle]

(oops. dp)

[jatf]

Originally posted by Zebitty

The debate is more a case of a case of turning up with a a unit of Tiger tanks to face William Wallaces' (Braveheart) attack on the English at Bannockburn.

I must be calm. I must be calm. I MUST BE CALM!

It was Robert de (the) Bruce at Bannockburn not Wallace. He was helped by an incompetent numpty of an English king (Edward II) who kindly made his knights charge through a bog while keeping his longbowmen (more than capable of slaughtering the scots infantry - see the defeat of Wallace at Falkirk by Edward I) tightly packed at the back of his army so they couldn't be used.

The scots infantry at the time used spears (10 foot long poles)- more than capable of poking holes in horses at a distance (pikes 20+ foot long poles) were much later - see flodden (and that was a disaster for Scotland BTW).

History tells us that you could walk across the river on the corpses.

As for Wallace, by the time Robert de Bruce came along his head was adorning a pike in London while the remainder of his body parts were scattered throughout the country.

As for the original question of the poll -



JATF

[Tiberius]

Maybe a new promotion should be available for units:
RNG master: x% more chances to have a favourable result during the RNG roll.

RNG master I, RNG master II .... RNG master "combat will generate the expected result"

I don't want hardcoded, sure wins either. I'm ok with random results, but sometimes they seem just ... too random.

[Enigma_Nova]

It all depends on which you find more fun,
but wouldn't it be better to have this as an option somewhere?

[LordShiva]

Enigma_Nova, every time someone resurrects this thread, God kills a kitten

[Enigma_Nova]

I'm sorry about the kittens. I hope this bump shows my respect.

[HavenDuuk]

Originally posted by LordShiva


Enigma_Nova, every time someone resurrects this thread, God kills a kitten

Now THAT is a good summary.

[Enigma_Nova]

I agree.