How will this change combat?

[DeepO]

I've got to come back to the correctness of the in-game calculator... a bug has just been identified, and solved.

Whenever both units have first strikes, something goes wrong. It is correct for all other cases (so e.g. when one of the units has fs), though. Well... until further notice, that is

DeepO

[Diadem]

Originally posted by Blake

Are you suuuuure about this? My testing suggests that the combat rounds odds are still determined by the post-damage strength ratio.

Weak units *hit* harder than they used to, but they don't hit *more often*.

No, I wasn't sure. I haven't been able to play the newest patch yet. I downloaded it, looked at it for 5 minutes, and then had to leave for 4 days for christmas. Sooooo evil of Firaxis to release that patch at that moment

The arguments I gave were based on what I know of combat, and what firaxis said they changed.

But their wording was a bit unclear, and from your testing it certainly looks like your interpretation is the correct one.

DAMAGE based on unwouded strength
CHANCE TO HIT based on wounded strength
HITPOINTS based on wounded strength (actually that is the way 'round. Wounded strength is based on hitpoints left. That's why you will never see a tank with 4.0 str, but you will see tanks with 3.9 str (14 hp) and 4.2 str (15 hp)

So wounded units are still a lot stronger than before, but not as much stronger as I feared they would be. Cities won't be unbeatable.

[DeepO]

All this combat change does, was to solve a design bug, if yu want to call it like that. Cities will not be unbeatable, however wounded defenders fell too fast... not anymore.

We are not going back to the Civ 3 system here, not by far. But the v109 system over emphasized health compared to strength, while both are now about equally important.

DeepO

[Blake]

So wounded units are still a lot stronger than before, but not as much stronger as I feared they would be. Cities won't be unbeatable.

Yup. And the nice thing is it's now intuitive - a half health gunship (10str) has equal odds with a knight (10str).
Well, as inutitive as it's going to get for a civ game anyway...

And collatoral is still important/essential, since a half strength unit is only one quarter as strong. Ofcourse it used to be 1/8th as strong... but it basically means a few more suicide pults.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
And collatoral is still important/essential, since a half strength unit is only one quarter as strong. Ofcourse it used to be 1/8th as strong... but it basically means a few more suicide pults.

Actually, that's not entirely correct. In v109, a continuous stream of cats could damage units that far (50%? 60% damage?) that any unit became useless. Even modern cities would fall if you just brought enough cats... after a while, cats always take out everything.

That's not true anymore: collateral damage is capped. At that 50 or 40 hp cap, infs will still beat all attacking cats, instead of losing all the time. So you need to bring in other units to deal with the defenders, you can't cat-rush anymore once rifles and infs appear. For some efficiency, you at least need knights or veteran maceman to deal with infs, but cavs or grenadiers/rifles are better. You don't need tanks, though, and cannons can still get you far.

DeepO

[Diadem]

Perhaps you can't crush modern units with tanks anymore, but it seems to me that Artillery will still do the job just fine.

A 40 hp mech inf will loose from a full-health artillery.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Diadem
Perhaps you can't crush modern units with tanks anymore, but it seems to me that Artillery will still do the job just fine.

A 40 hp mech inf will loose from a full-health artillery.

Yeah, plus artillery can do more collateral damage (down to 30 hp, IIRC). Tanks are faster, and thus a better option for bigger wars, but a full artillery rush for a couple of cities can be useful.

There should be 3 distinctive paths in the tech tree, when it comes to siege units: for every type (cat, cannon, art) there is a fastmover track, and a slowmover track.

For cats, it's elephants-cats vs HA. the axe-sword-maceman track is a separate one from the first two.

For cannons, it's cannons-grenadiers vs rifles-cav. Take it to the extreme, and you won't get rifling until you need it for either tanks or art. (because you need pikes-macemen to upgrade to city raider grenadiers and later infs.)

For art, it's art-rifle/inf vs tank-inf.

In every age, going straight for such a slowmover path is generally a good way to get out of a dire situation. Its use is limited, though, you can't be a full era behind and still expect to get good results.

DeepO

[Blake]

I'd hope people wouldn't really try and kill mechinfs with cats...
With appropriate investment it's still possible to make strong equal-tech invasions. Raider3 cannons (Westpoint ) really maul rifles and grenades. And stacks of doom are a bit less impotentized by counter-collatoral.

Altough I'm thinking that with this combat change the "Trebuchet" and "Modern Artillery" might be a bit more needed. The Trechbuchet in particular because Cannons require Iron. A str 8 siege unit would stand up to grenades and such better than pults. Collatoral upgraded modern armor works okay for Modern Artillery, combined with stealth bombers for reducing city defenders. But I still wouldn't mind an end game artillery option for the devoted ground-pounder (str 24 move 2 would be nice to keep up with mech inf and tanks, considering stealth bombers have perfect mobilty and defenders have railroad I don't think move2 artillery would be too unbalancing by that point).

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
I'd hope people wouldn't really try and kill mechinfs with cats...
With appropriate investment it's still possible to make strong equal-tech invasions. Raider3 cannons (Westpoint ) really maul rifles and grenades. And stacks of doom are a bit less impotentized by counter-collatoral.

I rarely have Westpoint raider III cannons... instead I've got raider III grenadiers. Combine that with cannons, and their 50% against rifles, and it's one of the most powerful units of its time.

Which is precisely why grenadiers normally can't have raider promotions. But by not researching rifling, you can build westpoint pikes, promote to raider III, and upgrade, all in one turn. This creates a unit which is about twice as strong as normal. You don't need the cannon support, but add that to the mix and you can cut trough anything easily.

Twice as strong, means many times better odds... not researching rifling can be a very solid strategy for slowmovers.

DeepO

[Blake]

Hmmm. Do you think raider grenades are better than raider cannons? They both have the same strength, but cannons deal collatoral.

Otoh grenades have a bonus vs rifles and have a better upgrade path...

I think I prefer cannons because they end up cheaper coming from a hammer rich heroic/westpoint city, no need to spend any coin in their creation. And I like the abundance of bombard.

edit: Oh and presence of Iron of course, that's sure to be a factor.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Blake
Hmmm. Do you think raider grenades are better than raider cannons? They both have the same strength, but cannons deal collatoral.

Not against rifles... another 50% for the grenadiers. Besides, you need to get to Westpoint too, it comes with mil trad. You don't need cavs, but westpoint is in many cases too good to pass up on. By the time you can fully use it, you will be facing rifles, though, and not muskets or longbows.

But even raider II does wonders on grenadiers: a invasion force of half raider II grenadiers, a quarter defensive grenadiers (against mounted, and medic), and a quarter raider II cannons is about the ideal mix. It's far more effective than a similar force based on cavs for attack. Of course, bringing a few cavs is never a bad idea, just don't waste them on cities unless you absolutely need to.

The other thing is simply getting to Westpoint: a raider II grenadier will certainly win enough battles to reach 17 XP fast. And you can start while you don't have cannons yet: Steel is quite expensive to get, you could conquer a civ with just raider II grenadiers vs knights and longbows. Bring cats if you like.

DeepO

[ghen]

Heh, DeepO.. if you do things perfectly you will still get badmouthed, better to just ignore it because threads will start if you say anything that even remotely resembles a response.

I won't be saying any more about the combat until I actually try it.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by DeepO
Actually, that's not entirely correct. In v109, a continuous stream of cats could damage units that far (50%? 60% damage?) that any unit became useless. Even modern cities would fall if you just brought enough cats... after a while, cats always take out everything.

That's not true anymore: collateral damage is capped. ...

Excuse Me!
Since when has seige collateral damage been capped? Not in the posted readme's, so can you post a reference?

I have installed but not yet played 1.52.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by Jaybe

Excuse Me!
Since when has seige collateral damage been capped? Not in the posted readme's, so can you post a reference?

Euh, it was always capped. I don't know if there is a reference somewhere, but the value is in Civ4UnitInfs.xml. Look for the iCollateralDamageLimit tag... you will see that for cats, the damage is capped at 50hp.

I haven't checked the code, but thought this parameter capped CD damage for units. It's higher for e.g. artillery

DeepO

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by DeepO
Euh, it was always capped. ...

Thanx, I had forgotten. Yes, Cat/Cannon/Arty collateral caps are 50/60/70. Good enough, just have to remember they are not that much better than bombers (and in 1.52 that could be significant).