Unit Strengths by Era

[pcasey]

Arrian,

Having a mobile unit in the stack doesn't prevent retreat unless you're actually attacking that specific unit. Thus if my 3 horsemen attack your 2 spearmen and a knight, I can retreat out of the two spearmen fights, but the knight fight is to the death.

You're absolutely right about Alice trying for a static defense. The problem is though, since each side alternates moving, its the only defense possible. She can't react to eve's advancing horde by rushign reinforcements to the threatened city. After all, its not her turn.

In any turn based game, all you can do is line your army up in good terrain, ride out your opponents assault, and then react on your own turn. Mobile, reactive defense is impossible. Since civ III lets the attacker strike me anywhere they please, the effectively means defense is impossible.

[Arrian]

pcasey,

Ok, I see your point about the nature of turn-based combat. However, how about a rule change (similar to the no-retreat if bombarded) that disallows retreat if there is an enemy mobile unit in the square you're attacking? The only problem I see here is that a horseman could prevent a tank from retreating and that would be a bit silly.

Maybe a combination some of our suggestions would work best. A slight increase in defense modifiers for cities/walls. A chance of failed retreat. A slight increase in the cost of mobile units. Add it all up and it may help balance things better.

Toss in some tweaks to the AI - the suicidal charge through my army to get at a worker needs to stop, for instance - and warfare gets a lot more challenging.

EDIT: Perhaps just as important as anything else, the AI needs to fortify its borders! A couple of defensive units placed strategically on hills, forests and mountains near the border could really slow me down.

-Arrian

[Comrade Tribune]

Retreat ability makes Fast Units nearly immortal. Pop Rush with Fast Units kills everybody.

Longbowmen are somewhat weirdish: Same Attack as Rifles simply doesn´t make sense.

Muskets and Rifles seem extremely expensive, especially compared to Fast Units.

Catapults and Cannons are unimpressive -very cheap, but also very weak.

Walls are also unimpressive, for the same reason. This feels wrong: Ancient Walls were a formidable obstacle. This is also one more reason why you don´t need Catapults.

Special Bonuses are missing: Bombardment Units should ignore Walls (but Walls should be stronger). Spearmen/Pikes/Muskets/Rifles/MechInf should have a Defense Bonus against Fast Units.

[Seth]

I'm very interested in the discussion of the dominance of the Jaguar, having missed the original conversation on the strategy thread (too much posted here to read).

One question: don't you waste your golden age by building those units from the start?

TIA

Peace

[player1]

Originally posted by Comrade Tribune
Walls are also unimpressive, for the same reasons. This feels wrong: Ancient Walls were a formidable obstacle. This is also one more reason why you don´t need Catapults.

Look my solution to Cavalry units (several threads up).

[randomturn]

I agree with many of the comments posted already. IMO, though, the game has much bigger balance problems than that created by units. The difficulty levels are not properly balanced. The Wonders are not properly balanced. The civ traits are not properly balanced. I hope Firaxis keeps at it, though, since Civ3 is already very good in a lot of ways.

[pcasey]

Seth:

Sure, your golden age blows early on, but so what? A well orchestrated jaguar rush can win you the game before the ancient era is over.

Of course, you can do the same thing with a horseman rush, or a war charior rush, or an impi rush, or, well, any unit with movement two. It works like clockwork, its just boring.

[DaBear]

Man Of War

I like the idea of navel battles with the Man of War but as mentioned previously on this thread they don't stay viable that long. So I only build 1 and put it with a privateer then move them out in the open to get GA without war.
I would also like to have great leaders (Admirals) from water battles and use it join water vessels into a navel task force.

[David Weldon]

Seth, seth, seth, ...

You shouldn't get confused by Vel's ramblings. We all put up with him in these forums, but we all know he doesn't really know anything or contribute to the community. Jaguar Warriors only dominate in his little "Jag Warrior Dominance" mod. You can see that he doesn't really have much of an imagination either, judging from the name anyway.

To answer your question, any ancient UU causes a smaller GA, but there are a few of factors that make it not such a big deal:

- Since growth is exponential during the expansion phase (while there's still unlcaimed land), a few shields and trade early on can be the equivalent of a lot of shields and trade later in the game.

- Most of the ancient UU's, especially the Mounted Warrior (which is far superior to the JW, btw) would be worth using even if they forced you to forfeit your GA. The extra cities, tech (via peace negotiations), and gold they create for you, not to mention the sheer growth that's possible by using them to conquer cities, is worth far more than any small penalty you incur by having an early GA.

Oh, and I've come to my own conclusion through extensive testing that the JW might be a very strong unit if you start "relatively close" to your opponents. Or so I've heard...

[Velociryx]

I agree with the general consensus that AI border fortification would solve much of the problem, and I steadfastly hold to the conviction that every strategy can be beaten.

Example:
I have strongly agreed with the notion that mounted units are, with auto-disengage, overpowered in the context of the game, and yet, overpowered or no, they CAN be countered. Fortification of borders is a part of that.

Problem:
The nature of the turn-based game seems to leave a situation where fluid attack is possible, but fluid defense is impossible. This is because, as has been stated here, an enemy can mass his troops and strike with pinpiont precision, while the defenders troops are more-or-less evenly (or at least widely) dispersed, thus, forced to react on the following turn to unexpected aggression.

Solution:
The crux of the problem then, becomes not so much that fluid defense is impossible, it is that fluid defense AT THE CITY GATE is impossible, and the solution lies in simply forcing the issue to some other locale (ie - fortification and staffing of the border).

Now, it is still true that the attacker can mass his forces fluidly. It is still true that he can overwhelm selected points OF that line. That part of the equation has not changed.

What HAS changed though, is the potential gain/harm that will result because of that combat. Now, when the position is overrun, no city (production center) is lost, however, much of the attack force (assuming proper staffing of border forts) has lost its momentum. Worse, said force must end its turn exposed (even on favorable terrain, a defending unit of (wounded!) cav is no match for a fresh unit of attacking cav. Thus, the attacker has tipped his hand (attacked), exposed a large portion of his attack force (his turn ends), and must now bear the brunt of the defender's counter-attack (fluid defense).

This is actually a variant of "Doctrine-Defensive" from the SMAX guide, except instead of ringing your continent with sea bases and using them as "spotters," you're building fortifications at relevant borders and staffing them with an increasingly deadly array of nasty things.

If the attacker decides it's not worth the trouble to "punch through" since there would be no immediate gain (that is to say, no immediate city capture, nor a degradation of the defender's ability to crank out troops--raze a city), then the defender wins by default, having averted the attack before it began.

Or...no?


-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Heh! David, I like you more all the time! Anytime you're passing through Columbia, drinks are on me....I think we'd get along famously!



-=Vel=-

[Arrian]

See, just when I thought I'd explained something pretty well, Vel has to come along and explain it much better

I really think that the solution isn't to mess with the units, but with the AI. I think I could defend against a massed attack... I might take losses, even a city or two, but the counterattack would be vicious... and I think I'd end up winning. The AI is hopeless once the human has the initiative.

As for MP balance... that's a discussion that should only occur once (if) there is MP. Look at all of the theoretical discussions about things in Civ III that took place prior to the release of the game. How many, in retrospect, were accurate or worthwhile?

-Arrian

[sophist]

Does the AI know how to handle choke points in geography? I've seen some instances of what could have been that sort of behavior, but I've also seen the AI extend itself beyond an isthmus where cities would be more of a liability than an asset. If the AI knew:

1) how to expand better with regard to strategic geography

2) how to keep prospective attackers at arm's length so they couldn't just swoop in and grab 5 cities in one turn

3) use mobile units effectively

4) effectively attack after the ancient era, mainly with the infantry/mobile/artillery stack that's becoming all the rage

Then we wouldn't be having this discussion. The four strategies above put together would make the AI a much more formidable opponent militarily and it would become clear that the unit stats aren't the problem.

It would also help if the AI were able to manage its research better; for example, in a lot of situations, it makes a lot of sense for me to go straight for Military Tradition because then I can get a serious military advantage over the AIs and use that to catch up on the other techs I've missed. If the AI better understood the value of that tech in relation to, say, Printing Press, and

1) moved more aggressively towards it (knowing that a human player would be likely to do the same)

2) tried to get it from other players (AI or human) as soon as possible

3) did not share out the tech except for exorbitant cost

that would also go a long way.

[Sevorak]

Hmmm...I like the idea of defensive artillery preventing retreat.

Defensive artillery, despite being a last-minute throw-in, has a lot of potential as a game concept. At this point, however, it's a little too weak since it only gets to fire at one opponent per turn, and at a ROF of 1. Why shouldn't a defender have to use combined arms too?

Oh, and perhaps this is a bug, but as I've mentioned before, it's not only land. Ships act as defensive artillery for each other in a stack, and from what I can interpret from the readme that's not intended.

Specific comments.

Vel,

I agree regarding fluid attack and fluid defense, and I'm wondering if the solution isn't Civ2/SMAC style ZOC, granted only by fortresses. That would make border defense really border defense, in that every fort along the way would have to be engaged and defeated before the forces rip in, burn down the city, and leave.

One shot ZOC doesn't really cut it, not much of a threat considering its low chance of success. Fortresses seem to be kind of an afterthought, just tacked on - Soren once said that the AI generally doesn't build fortresses because their value is "debatable" or something like that. I mean, any unit passing a fortress has a flat 50% chance not to be hit at all. Then, the unit in the fortress uses its attack value (which is not always too impressive) to attempt its advantage shot. You're sort of stuck there in terms of fortress garrisoning - you either stick a unit in there that can defend against a direct attack, or you put one in that might actually hit with its opportunity fire. Or, you could stack more units in, but then you're just dispersing your defense more.

Without the Civ2 style ZOC lock, even fortresses are of minimal use, since to guard a border that way would be to occupy every tile on the border with a fortress and unit. Otherwise, they ignore your fortresses, their only risk being a single 20-30% chance at a single hit point off a single target.

Just a thought.

Sirian,

Totally agree regarding your wood hulled ships comments, their presence there is totally nonsensical. I'm actually rather annoyed at the way the ship stats are done overall, though I've beaten that particular issue to death elsewhere on the boards.

As for the 'stealth fighter' - since they're basing the technologies and units on real-world things (excepting the spaceship - note how even Fusion Power is gone from Civ2) they use the F-117A as their example, which is why it can't perform air superiority missions. There has never, in real life, been an operationally deployed 'stealth fighter' per se, just a 'small precise stealth bomber' and a 'large imprecise stealth bomber'. You can see they use the F-117A as its graphic, and the real-life F-117A carries no combat air-to-air radar, and most importantly, no air-to-air weaponry either - indeed, it cannot carry air-to-air missiles. So if you really think about it, the lack of air superiority from a stealth 'fighter' is completely realistic.

-Sev

[gus_smedstad]

I'm going to repeat the comment about fast units, but from a different perspective.

Artillery units generally aren't cost effective, at least not on the attack. They do add a bit to the effective defense strength of the defender.

If we're attacking a city with a barracks, we must kill all the defenders in a single round. Wounds don't count.

We also want to use a technique that generates no (or very rare) casualties for the attacker. That means either fast units or lots of artillery. Stacks of infantry generally take casualties unless they are much more advanced than the defender.

2 Horsemen (60 shields) per defending Spearman is generally enough to win.

You need 6 Catapults plus an Archer (140 shields) per Spearman to have a reasonable chance of winning without casualties. Each catapult has a 2/3rds chance of causing 1 HP damage, and about half the time they hit the town instead of the archer. We need to knock the Spearman down to 1 HP if we don't want to risk losing the Archer.

On the plus side, the Catapults / Archer require no special resource. However, they have a much higher upkeep (7 vs. 2), are slower so reinforcements take longer to arrive, cost more shields, and the catapults often miss and mess up the town instead.

Even if Catapults never hit the town, it's still 3 Catapults and 1 Archer per spearman. If the defenders are Vetrans, it's much worse - you need 50% more Catapults.

The next artillery piece is the Cannon, and the contemporary units are Cavalry and Riflemen.

2 Cavalry (120 shields) is generally enough per defending Rifleman.

Cannons cause 1 wound 4/7ths of the time on Riflemen, and again miss about half the time. You need 6 Cannons and a Longbowman (280 shields) per rifleman.

The next artillery is Artillery, against Infantry and Tanks.

You only really need about 1.5 Tanks (150 shields) per Infantry.

Artillery hits Infantry 6/11ths of the time, but shoots twice. You need 4 Artillery plus a Rifleman (400 shields) per Infantry. That probably wouldn't give you low-casualty results, either, since the infantry only wins 2/7ths of the rolls. Artillery + Cavalry is a better bet, provided you have saltpeter, but don't have rubber and oil.

The final one is Radar Artillery, vs. Mech Infantry and Modern Armor.

You need about 2 Modern Armor (240 shields) per Mech Infantry.

Radar Artillery hits Mech Infantry 8/17ths of the time, and fires 3 times. Including misses, you need 3 R.A. and a Tank (460 shields) per Mech Infantry. You can't really use any regular infantry against Mech Infantry, since all regular infantry types have attack values that are so low that they'll still lose significant numbers to Mech Infantry with 1 HP.

In short, all artillery needs to be about twice as good as it is now, since the value of the hits on the town instead of the unit are very low to the attacker. That value isn't zero, but it's at most elminating the 25% bonus for size 7+ cities.

- Gus