Announcement

**Aeson** · July 21, 2004, 13:30

Battle outcomes aren't affected by difficulty level except when fighting against Barbarians.

**Solomwi** · July 21, 2004, 13:53

What type of terrain were these pikemen on?
Were your knights veterans, regulars or elites (same ? for the pikes)?
Were you attacking walled cities?
Were you attacking across rivers?
What size cities were you attacking the pikes in?

Let's make some basic assumptions in lieu of answers to the above questions:

The pikes were fortified on flat land with no other defensive bonus. That gives them a 10% bonus for the terrain and a 25% bonus for fortification.

3*(1+.10+.25) = 4.05 modified defense.

Your knights' attack values stay at 4, so effectively, this is a dead even battle and, if both are veterans or both are regulars or both are elites, you should win 50% of them.

Let's look at the other end of the spectrum:

The pikemen are fortified in cities (size 7-12) or walled towns on hills, behind a river. That's 50% for city size/walls, 25% for fortified, 50% for hills, 25% for the river.

3*(1+.25+.25+.50+.50) = 7.5 modified defense

Now, your 4 attack starts to look pretty bad.

Neglecting retreat chances for the knight, your chances of winning are:

4/(4+7.5) = 34.8%

I'm sure your attacks fall somewhere between these extremes, but you can see why you're losing more than you think you should.

Some things you can do:

* Bring along artillery, and lots of it. Catapults and trebuchets, given your current tech level (and cannon, artillery and radar artillery later), can knock hitpoints of the pikemen, tipping the scale back your way some. They can also knock out city walls and reduce population, helping with the defensive bonuses. I can't stress enough, though, bring lots of it. If you just bring one or two pieces, you'll fire, they'll miss and you'll decide it isn't worth it.

* Think about your approach. Where is the best place from which to attack? If there's a river to the east of the city, can you get to it via the south, thereby negating that bonus?

* Remember Stalingrad. Even the toughest situation can be broken if you simply throw enough units at it. This is the worst fix, but if each of your knights manages to knock off one hitpoint, the fourth one stands a good chance of killing the pikeman.

* Read the Civilopedia. Learn the bonuses, primarily.

* Experiment. Replay an invasion turn several times, using different tactics each time, and see what works best.

**Kloreep** · July 21, 2004, 13:58

As Aeson says, difficulty does not effect things.

What sort of tiles are the pikemen defending on? Three things could be giving them an edge:

1) They're fortified. (signified by a white box enclosing the hitpoints bar). This is a +25% defense bonus. Combine this with the +10% bonus on flatland (the lowest defensive bonus for land tiles in the game) and they're already at 4 defense to your 4 attack.
2) They're in a City or a walled Town - or worse yet, in your opponent's capitol. City-size cities (popluation size 7-12 OR size 1-6 for the capitol) give a +50% bonus to defense, and Metropolis-sized cities (size 13 and up OR size 7-12 for the capitol) give a +100% bonus. Towns (1-6) have no defensive bonus, but they can get a +50% bonus, like a city, if they have city walls built in them.
3) They're on good terrain like hills or mountains. Hills give a +50% bonus, mountains a +100% bonus.

So, in the worst-case scenario - fortified, in a size 7+ capitol on a hill - your enemy's units will get a +175% defensive bonus!

**vmxa1** · July 21, 2004, 15:01

Don't forget that if you attack across a river they get an additional bonus. Get one of the many tools to calculate combat results to see how they fair on the norm.

A good one will have a notation for any bonus available.

**Dominae** · July 21, 2004, 15:24

Re: Like an unarmored Recon Rover, I'm being held back!

Originally posted by EternalSpark
So, I go into combat. Knights are 4-3-2, their defenders are Pikemen - 1-3-1. I'm thinking, I have PlasmaSteel Impact Rovers, and they have Plasma Steel Garrisons. Quasi-balanced battle, but the low-ass test difficulty should help, right?

Well, I notice something. My knights kept losing battles. A lot.

Thats ok, I think to myself. I got the medieval infantry guys, which are 4-2-1. So Synthsteel armored Impact Infantry, right?

In SMAC, are you used to having high-Morale troops (i.e. do you play the Spartans a lot?). There are only three levels of Morale in Civ3 (well, four, but you rarely see Conscripts), and the highest one, Elite, you have to fight to get. I'm not 100% sure about this, but on average I believe higher Morale in SMAC is better for combat results than higher experience in Civ3 (one system uses HPs, one uses attack/defense modifiers).

Knights are different from Rover-type units because they do not get a 50% bonus for attacking units "in the open" like Recons do. Also, infantry units in Civ3 do not get a bonus when attacking cities/bases.

Anyway, in general, the combat systems of both games are different enough that you cannot just compare the stats of the units. The learning curve is a bit steeper than that!

**EternalSpark** · July 21, 2004, 16:11

What type of terrain were these pikemen on?

Normal flat.

Were your knights veterans, regulars or elites (same ? for the pikes)?

Veterans. Pikes were regular.

Were you attacking walled cities?

Nope.

Were you attacking across rivers?

Nope.

What size cities were you attacking the pikes in?

3-4.

In short - multiple Veteran Knights on basic terrain are dying against regular Pikeman in an unwalled, tiny town. All. The. Time.

**Baron von Funk** · July 21, 2004, 16:26

It can really suck like that. I have never quite figured out quite how the results seem to defy the statistics. It must be the spirit of Sid Meier possessing my computer and skewing the calculations

**Kloreep** · July 21, 2004, 16:41

Originally posted by Baron von Funk
It can really suck like that. I have never quite figured out quite how the results seem to defy the statistics. It must be the spirit of Sid Meier possessing my computer and skewing the calculations

If it happens to you all the time, you're the unlucky small % of the civ-playing population to whom that will happen.

If it only happens occassionally, you're simply seeing a streak. Truely random results will have streaks from time to time; if there were no streaks, it wouldn't be truly random.

**vmxa1** · July 21, 2004, 16:51

I am not real fond of attacking forted pikes with even knights, it is a good way to have a bad day. I would rather either use massive bombardment or an army. Preferably an army.

**Arrian** · July 21, 2004, 17:00

I've seen long runs of bad luck during which I wonder why I bothered to get my tech lead, do a mass upgrade and attack my neighbor with superior units. But then it passes. It REALLY sucks while it's happening, but it will pass.

There are two basic things I have learned that help deal with the randomness in CivIII combat:

1) Bring more guys. Because your veteran knight may well lose to a regular pike (or regular archer on flat ground, for that matter!), you need to bring more than just 1 per the expected number of enemy units.

2) Bombardment. Bring bombardment units along, and blast enemy units down to 1 or 2 hp. Then attack with your combat units. This will dramatically reduce the number of times you want to scream at the monitor in frustration. It will mean fewer casualties, and possibly more military great leaders (indirect effect of fewer casualties: your elites are less likely to die an ignoble death at the hands of some inferior unit, since you will reduce said inferior unit to 1hp prior to attacking).

Early on, I went with the "bring more guys" approach almost exclusively, and didn't use bombardment at all, or at least until artillery rolls around in the industrial age. I loved pure horseman rushes, with TONS of horsemen.

I eventually switched to a more balanced force, and now rely more heavily on bombardment. It's more important in Conquests, because it's more powerful (now hits units first instead of the old system which resulted more often in breaking city improvements and killing pop) and because upgrade costs have been increased, so my old style mass horseman rushes are more expensive. Also, my old 25 chariot -> horse upgrade relied on a slow ancient era tech pace, with me hoarding gold for the upgrade. With the advent of SGLs and the free tech for philosophy, I now research pell-mell in the ancient era.

-Arrian

**Dis** · July 21, 2004, 19:47

knights against pikes can be tough if they are fortified in a decent size city. although sometimes small cities can give trouble. A difference of one (attack 4, defense 3) isn't much.

For city busting, I recomment bombarding units of some sort. Catapults suck. At this point you might have that upgraded catapult unit- trebuchets I think they are called. They are pretty good for city busting. They will soften them up, making battles easier to win.

Just make sure you protect the stack of bombarding units with a good defensive unit like a pikemen. I usually place them on hills surrounding a city. It does slow up your attack a bit. But it's really all you can do at this point.

**Theseus** · July 21, 2004, 20:14

Use overwhelming force, either at the unit or force level, applied carefully to where there is underwhelming defense.

**Kuciwalker** · July 21, 2004, 20:14

Overkill = good, basically.

**Solomwi** · July 21, 2004, 21:27

In short - multiple Veteran Knights on basic terrain are dying against regular Pikeman in an unwalled, tiny town. All. The. Time.

What it looks like is you're going into a pretty much even fight (slight advantage with vets, but on a HP for HP basis, even) and hitting a bad streak from the random number generator. It happens, and over time will even out. In the meantime, bring bombardment and more knights.

Announcement

Like an unarmored Recon Rover, I'm being held back!

Like an unarmored Recon Rover, I'm being held back!

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment