ICP & Bonus Squares

[Xorbon]

"6+ archers" are fine against normal cities defended by spears, but against hilled cities (especially ones with walls) it's not as good of a tactic. Against these cities, having a half dozen (or more) catapults to soften-up the enemy can be a great help. In addition to knocking hit points off enemy units, catapults also destroy walls. You can save yourself a few casualties by including catapults in your attack force.

All that being said, you should only start building catapults once you have a modest (or larger) sized army. A half dozen catapults aren't much use when you have few offensive units to back them up!

[Theseus]

I had the same question... guessing: Initial City Placement.

[aksully]

Originally posted by Dissident
what the hell is ICP?

aside from the lamo band that is.

Initial City Placement.

Hey Dom don't worry....I read all and listen to no one !

I might have mentioned that I had elected to build the Oracle just to have a bump up on the rest of the crowd for culture. I decided to risk all and not convert wonder building and losing 100 shields of production and switch to military production. It looks to have paid off as I have defeated the Incan warriors and american spearmen, two archers and 2 warriors! All the while building up my southern most city. Am one turn from getting a road built to horses and 5 turns from the Oracle. Pretty soon the Celts will shift from wonder building to unit crunching and take that iron away from the americans.

The next question will be whether I should send a settler along with my strike force and raze washington or occupy? They have new york nearby, and will have another city as well by the time I can attack in force. They have been pop rushing units so are only at size 1 and 2.

I'm pretty sure I'll raze, get at least one worker out of it and use my settler?

I don't know much about the Incas other than they have 6 cities to my 5 and are busy on two wonders. Kind of strange in that they are the ones who declared war on me because I wouldn't give them Polythesism. They have straggled 3 warriors at me over a fairly long distance....none of course have returned home....alive! I'm guessing that by the techs they have that they may be resource poor. I would have expected them to send swordsmen, horse-riders, etc by now?

Anyone heard any more updates on the release of Civ 4?

Sully

[aksully]

You're right Xorbon....I love artillery of all types! I like to have a few stashed in my most exposed city just in case some civ gets the wrong idea and attacks!

I like to give all those type of visitors some "Quality Time" if you know what I mean

Had an interesting combat result last night. Had an archer on one mountain and a srearman (both regular) and a vet warrior on another. I attacked 2 archers (reg) non fortified in open grounds. It was I thought the perfect ambush with what I had to work with. I attacked with my archer who killed one archer yet went all the way to red in hitpoints/strength. Then I attacked with my vet warrior who got killed as did my spearman??
I decided to run the combat again (don't usually do this) with the same results x 8. What gives? I could see it if they were maybe fortified or were behind a river. But these two dudes were right out in the open? I could see losing one unit..but two?

Sully

[vmxa1]

Archer vs archer is 2 att vs 1 def and if no def bonus, should go 70%. Spear vs archer is 1 att vs 1 def and only wins 10%.

If you have the game setup as rng on, the results win never change if you do things in the same order. So if the only thing done that turn was archer attacks archer, the results will stay the same no matter how many times you reload. If you do not use preserve seed, then you can get different results. In the spear vs archer, it could stay the same over quite a few attempts even with the seed off.

[Theseus]

Welcome to Civ3 combat. Learn to pray to the RNG Godz.

[Modo44]

Originally posted by Theseus
Welcome to Civ3 combat. Learn to pray to the RNG Godz.

Pffft. Learn to bring sufficient forces.

[Theseus]

That too!!

[aksully]

Originally posted by Modo44

Pffft. Learn to bring sufficient forces.

Point taken...but they were attacking me and so I decided to punish those hordes since I thought I had a tactical advantage with the defense modifier!

Sully

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by aksully
Point taken...but they were attacking me and so I decided to punish those hordes since I thought I had a tactical advantage with the defense modifier!

Is it possible you are misunderstanding the way defense bonuses are applied? If you attack them, then it is they who get the terrain bonus, not you! Since they were in open terrain, their bonus would have been +10%. So, your attack vs. theirs would have been 1 vs. 1.1 (or a 10:11 ratio). Still, to be getting the same results over and over you must have had "preserve random seed" on (as vmxa1 pointed out).

[aksully]

Yup PRS was indeed on. So let me get this straight....if my unit on a mountain attacks a unit in the open...I understand my attack strength is what it is. But the defense modifier isn't applied if I attack? Just if I'm on the mountain and attacked first?

[joncnunn]

All defensive bonsuses are only when you are attacked.

That is standard practice not only in Civilization games, but in SSI War Games.

Some of those have offensive penaltives in certain situations. (When attacking out of a tile that is particularly bad.) And several have attack peanalities when crossing the river in leiu of a defensive bonsus against units crosing the river.

Originally posted by aksully
Yup PRS was indeed on. So let me get this straight....if my unit on a mountain attacks a unit in the open...I understand my attack strength is what it is. But the defense modifier isn't applied if I attack? Just if I'm on the mountain and attacked first?

[Dis]

Originally posted by joncnunn
All defensive bonsuses are only when you are attacked.

That is standard practice not only in Civilization games, but in SSI War Games.

Some of those have offensive penaltives in certain situations. (When attacking out of a tile that is particularly bad.) And several have attack peanalities when crossing the river in leiu of a defensive bonsus against units crosing the river.

though I believe smac gives a bonus when you attack from higher terraing to lower terrain.

[vmxa1]

Your def is not used in the combat calc anyway, if you are attacking. It is just your A vs their D with any bonus they may be getting.

[Xorbon]

Which means your spearman is equal to your warrior when attacking (both with an attack strength of 1). If you have the choice of attacking with a spearman or a warrior, pick the warrior since it's cheaper to build.

Remember the basic Civ combat equation for odds of an offensive unit scoring a hit during any particular round of combat:

chance to hit = A / (A + D) * 100%
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp where A = attack strength of attacking unit
&nbsp &nbsp &nbsp and D = defense strength of defending unit + modifiers

It's that simple. Nothing too complex there.