why do cavalry defeat infantry easier than other infantry do?

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by dexters

Far inferior units have slaughtered technologically superior ones throughout world history. Get off the case about technology and firepower.

As often as it happens in Civ? I don't think so

and when it has happened (Zulus come to mind, first Aztec battle against Spanish) it has been under usually huge numerical advantages. In that case I picture a tank attacking 5 fortified veteran spears...

[dexters]

Well... Civilization is an abstraction of many things. The battle system in its may forms of implementation is the least of it.

For that matter, I should add that we should get off the case of realism alltogether. It was and is a gameplay decision. And while this may annoy people like you who wants their tanks to win 100% of the time, I see it as putting more variability into the equation and that a more advanced army marching into an enemy territory being routed by a series of "good luck" events is just fine.

It is an abstraction of battlefield tactics between units that we don't get to control.

Yes, these kind of victories happens often enough to be a factor. But usually, if I have 5 knights facing a 3 spearman fortified town, I am fairly confident my knights will take it. Sure, ONE or TWO knights may die, but having all 5 knights dying or all 3 spearman surviving the 5 knight offensive is rare. If players are stupid enough to send off 1 tank to take a spearman defended city and expect it to take the entire town, attack and defend turn after turn, kill the defenders and come out unscathed, then they deserve to get screwed by the game. It's just poor planning and poor understanding of the game mechanics.

The bottem line is, superior units win out most of the time. If people have trouble with this, it's usually a fundamental flaw in their assumptions that just because a unit is advanced, it can withstand anything and they can play sloppy. A regular Infantry isn't going to survive a large enough spearman charge. And that is actually realistic militarily speaking. Technology can be overwhelemd.

EDIT: Love your Han Solo avatar

[Master Zen]

Dexters:

If you like the combat system fine. I don't. Deal with it.

I have every right to complain about a combat system which I feel would be MUCH better had just some little things been added. Among these:

1) the stacking problem
2) the odds of winning/losing
3) the way bombardment works

Want a simple but effective combat system? Try a variation of Panzer General, it could surely be adapted for a civ game, and it would be much more realistic.

I am not saying it is not fun. I love Civ3, I am happy warmongering my way to victory. But it is not real, sorry to bust your bubble, and any grognard would laugh at the combat model. Sure, Civ3 is not a wargame, I understand, but it could have been better, much better if it had only taken the best out of Civ2 and SMAC and combined it with the best of its own model.

Anyway, realistic or not, the game is fun.

And for the record, that is MY opinion, I don't expect others to agree with it.

EDIT: I've had so many avatars I wonder when I'm finally going to decide on a permanent one...

[Tattila the Hun]

Panzer General-type combat would be great. Like infantry being more cabaple in taking cities and defending them, and tanks ruling the open grounds. Also, this would enable AT-units, slow (towed) units good against the enemy hordes of tanks, losing baddly to inf. (Except the mighty 88", as I recall from PG...) Supression might work too... And the "overwhelming" from Pacific Gen. (Your ten marines attack the fortified japanese in unison, from all sides, instead of one-by-one.)

[Master Zen]

Yey, another PG fan

It would be really easy to give historical tags to units and give them advantages over others. For example, a Pike tag would make a unit much more effective against Mounted units (Civ2 had this...) , and a Tank tag which would make them less good at taking cities... stuff like that. Simple but great. It doesn't make the model overwhelming like a real wargame (which would pretty much freak out 90% of all civ fans) but make it realistic enough, at least for my taste

BTW, never played Pacfic Gen, wonder if the naval model would work too...

[Tattila the Hun]

Well, carriers could have their own types of planes (can't land a b-17 on a carrier) and could fix their sortiments "on the water."
Haven't played Pac that much, either... Will not work on my system. (?)

I didn't remember Civ2 had such tags, wonder why they were taken away?

One thing from PGII, if enemy tank would attack my troops, every cannon within range and with ammo would open fire at the poor sap, turning it to atoms. In CivIII, only one of my 20 cannons take a bite (1-hp) out of the attacker.

[nbarclay]

One advantage cavalry have compared with infantry when attacking infantry is that cavalry's retreat ability helps deny enemy infantry chances for promotion. Against attacking infantry, a defending infantry has a chance at a promotion in its first victory and is guaranteed promotion no later than its second (if it survives that long, of course). That helps defenders get back hit points lost in the attacks. But if a cavalry retreats instead of dying, the battle doesn't count in terms of the defending infantry's chances of promotion. That gives cavalry an advantage in whittling down infantry a hit point or two at a time, an advantage which I would guess more than outweighs the rare occasions when a one-hit-point cavalry would actually defeat an infantry with two or more hit points left if it didn't retreet. (For those who may not have noticed, fast-movers never retreat when their enemy is down to its last hit point, so the only time retreat costs cavalry a chance at defeating infantry are when odds are stacked heavily against the cavalry. Of course that means if you've bombarded the enemy infantry down to their last hit point, cavalry's retreat ability becomes irrelevant. If your attack force is mixed, you're best off hitting with cavalry against uninjured foes and using your infantry against the badly wounded.)

And as has already been mentioned, the fact that retreating cavalry don't die makes a huge difference over the course of a campaign. Cavalry might fail to achieve victory about as often as infantry do, but a lot fewer replacements for dead units are needed.

Not that I use cavalry against infantry more than very, very rarely. My normal course of action is to wait for tanks/panzers, or, more likely unless I'm Germany, for modern armor.

[bongo]

By now most people should be aware of the fact that civ3 is unrealistic in a number of ways. But it's great fun and higly addictive

I have made a simple script for testing civ3-style combat. If vet cavalry attacks vet infantry with only the standard 10% defensive bonus he has roughly 18% change of winning, 44% change of retreating and 38% change of loosing. If vet infantry attacks vet infantry(still only 10% bonus) the attacker will win 20% and loose 80% of the combats. This illustrate the importance of the retreat ability, you will win marginally less but survive much longer.

Note, my programming skills are better than my math skills so the script simulates a large number of 1 to 1 combats(10000 in this example) and sums up the result. The script simulates the game mechanics, to the best of my knowledge.

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by Master Zen
Yey, another PG fan

It would be really easy to give historical tags to units and give them advantages over others. For example, a Pike tag would make a unit much more effective against Mounted units (Civ2 had this...)

What a brilliant idea! Personally I prefer Civ2 combat. I think Civ2 is harder without knowing all the tricks like farming barbs etc.

I don't think PG originated the idea of speciality tags on units, although it could well be the first in computer strategy games (as opposed to board games).

[vmxa1]

Not to start a war, but Civ2 was about as easy a game as you could find. One unit could defend a city against an entire empire in Civ2. Try that in civIII.
I loved Civ2, but it is not as challenging as CivIII.