What Have I missed?

[Ming]

Yeah... losing a 99.9% attack sucks, but it's going to happen. And I have no problem with that. I don't think it's any fun if you always win when the odds are in your favor. In war, stuff happens. And the claim that it happens too often I think is more based on you happen to remember it since it kind of sucks, and you forget that you had over a 100 or a 1000 combats before that when things did go by the odds. Sure, sometimes you go through a bad streak, and yet, sometimes you go through a lucky streak... it all evens out in the end.

[LzPrst]

I hate that in civ4 units mostly fight to the death. Losing a battle = losing years and years of investment into production because of a bad luck roll. Civ5 does portray this slightly better. I believe it is better design in a game that the player's success and failure is slightly more rounded than the win/fail option. It also allows the player to respond to bad luck in a better way.

Usually in real life soldiers run away or surrender. The norm is not that entire battalions are completely annhiliated. They usually fight until they retreat, then try to reorganize and replenish.

[rah]

I have mixed feeling on that one. I agree that it's more realistic and it's good for 1up in the front lines, but they need to make it easier to retreat on a crowded field of war. It's so tedious figuring out how to move all the units in the proper order so you don't violate 1up.

[Ming]

I would agree with you under the 1UPT concept. But in Civ IV, when you can have a "Many" units in a square, I don't have a problem with the fight to the death battles. One unit simply isn't all that important.

As for real life... usually a bad argument when it comes to Civ. Nothing is very realistic

[LzPrst]

I agree that gameplay > realism
But I often play with fewer stronger units (high tech/experience) rather than spam less expensive units. Usually this is a bad strategy (both in real life and in civ), but that's just what I like and I do feel that having a small professional army should be able to at least compete with a vast horde of unwashed barbarians. When the dice roll is so random and bad luck = losing a whole battalion of those very valuable and expensive soldiers, it gives an unfair advantage to horde armies. If I have 90% chance of winning every battle and I have 10 units, an enemy with 15-16 will win regardless, as 1-2 of my elites will fall to bad luck, and the others will take (often very high) damage from the initial onslaught being ripe to be picked off by the remaining soap-haters.

With a civ5 style "damage inflicted" model, good units become better and easier to keep alive, making them stronger. Of course the 1upt completely messes up the good of this combat model, so not much point really. But at least it is half a step in the right direction (in my opinion).

[Ming]

Units die... it's called combat
I think it would get really boring quick if my elite units always won. I like that they get a significant advantage, but you take chances when you go to war. In a non 1UPT system, it's the total army that matters, not individual units. The percentage approach still maintains the superior troops advantage, but keeps it interesting as well.

I really enjoy taking a risk and attacking against the odds if the prize is worth it. If I knew that I had NO CHANCE attaking at below 50% odds, that would really take a lot of the fun out of the game. It would make combat more of a chore, a battle of simple math. I think it's not only a matter of game play, but realism as well.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice units to weaken the enemy so that you can take them. If the stronger unit always won, it would take away the "overwhelm" appoach you sometimes need when facing a more advanced army.

In combat, **** happens.

[LzPrst]

"Superior training and superior weaponry have, when taken together, a geometric effect on overall military strength. Well-trained, well-equipped troops can stand up to many more times their lesser brethren than linear arithmetic would seem to indicate."
-Spartan Federation SMAC

There shouldn't be a 0% chance, but superiority should at least provide an advantage. Often it feels like a 90% victory chance results in the same as a 70% victory chance. Out of 10 fights with 90% rates I will often lose 2-3 units, which is roughly the same as when I fight 10 battles with a 70% victory chance. During 100's of battles I guess it balances out, but in general I feel that my superior troops get beaten down more often than is statistically correct. Especially if it is a close or crucial battle...

[rah]

Over the years the odds seem to have played out for me as expected with one exception. When attacking a large stack in the field or in a city, after I've hit it with cats, the first non-collateral damage unit that I attack with never seems to perform as good as the odds say, especially if i'm using a great general. It's usually when the odds are in the 70 80 range (almost similar ot LzPrst) But after that first attack, it seems normal again. Now if it's after a strike from cannons, that's different. I'll stack attack with 10 units at about 90 percent and maybe lose one. So it seems good.

If you play the game a lot you're going to do 1000's of attacks which means you're eventually going to lose a 99.9 attack. That one you will remember, especially if it was a GG. Sometimes this type of selective memory might bias your thinking on the odds.

[mkorin]

I tracked 100 battles in CIV IV and the percentages were trending towards being very correct. I'd beat they are in V also.

Mike

[rah]

It's handled differently in V so there really is no comparison.

[SpencerH]

As I see it, the problem was that too much damage was done by a spearman to a modern unit. That initial damage then resulted in a much greater chance for the second (suicide) attack, etc. So the first spearman attacking your tank unit died, but if it did any damage then the second or third would kill your tank. Thats wrong, IMO. It's certainly true that there should be a chance that a spearman should kill a tank but that chance should be much less than 1/1000. Just a quick look at the differences in the combat losses during the first Gulf war comparing modern american vs near-modern Iraqi forces (approx 1/1000 for tanks 1/2000 for arty and 1/200 for apc) should tell you that the chances for a "spearman" doing any damage should be much lower than 1/1000.

[rah]

For me if the first spearman damages the tread and immobilizes the tank, the second spearman has a much greater chance of destroying the tank, so it's consistent as far as I'm concerned.
And spearman in civ IV are probably the equivalent of Iraqi forces so 1/1000 sound acceptable.