****in' game

[delana]

is it me or that they didn't work correctly on civ 3?
An infantry can be killed by a spearman!!! Does patches ( or the extensions) correct this stupid thing ?
Or should i use a mod to be able to make war realistic?

[Willem]

Re: ****in' game

Originally posted by delana
is it me or that they didn't work correctly on civ 3?
An infantry can be killed by a spearman!!! Does patches ( or the extensions) correct this stupid thing ?
Or should i use a mod to be able to make war realistic?

There's an easy thing you can do yourself to correct this. Just give units that appear later in the game more hit points in the editor.

[vmxa1]

Short answer, it is not changed in any patches, but they are tlaking about some adjustments.

The battle would be about 80% for the infantry, with just 125% bounus to the spear. If that spear was in a metro forted and the attacker comes over a river and so on, the attacker will have problems. Infantry are not best used as attackers. Attacking metros with infantry is going to be painful.

Most have long ago come to terms with the combat and just take the occassional bad rng. Storming citie/metros is best done with combined arms and armies. Failing all that use tanks/MA.

[gunkulator]

If you find yourself attacking with Infantry, you're probably doing something wrong. If the occassional loss of one Infantry throws off your whole battle plan, then you're definitely doing something wrong.

[asleepathewheel]

attacking spears with infantry=go to higher difficulty level

[delana]

a bit too excessive

In civ 2 if you attack a spearman with a musketeer you win, the same in the two call to power... What's the use of finding powdergun if it's to be defeated quite all the time. In this case why a spearman wouldn't resist to nuclear attack... with his spear he can make a hole in the rocket and this deviate it

[vmxa1]

The idea was that they wanted to make the civs with a problem (behind) be able to use their obsolete units. Now I do not agree with this concept, but it is in the game.

As to Civ2 combat, lets let it be dead. It in fact was horrible. You could have one superior unit defeat any number of unit in one battle. You could defend a city with one unit and walls against nearly the whole army of a given civ. I for one was glad to see that and the ZoC go away.

I doubt you will to many claiming it is harder to beat civ2 than civ3.

Believe me in CivIII if a nuke hits the spear, he is gone. If you attack a spear with a musket, you are making a mistake. A unit with defense of 2 with do well against a unit of 2 attack and no retreat.

It is understood that the RNG can be cruel and can be strreaky. In the main using better units and tactic will win the day. Occassional loses are tobe pitied, but shrugged off. Underdogs win from time to time or there would be no wagering.

[Capt Dizle]

Another spearman thread.

If only Firaxis would change their stance on providing info to the player. In SMAC you had a simple utility provided that would show battle odds before you attack. What would be the great sin of having that feature?

Firaxis did not provide the information necessary to explain combat in game. I would think that given the many complaints we have seen in the forums about combat, and given the fact that many people probably got frustrated and simply quit playing rather than look for help online, it is likely that Firaxis blew a lot of Civ4 sales. Folks are going to see Civ4 on the shelf and remember the incomprehensible combat from Civ3 and just pass on to another title. I hope Firaxis realizes its mistake and does a better job with Civ4 in this area.

People have a right to expect infantry to beat spearmen everytime. If not, they have a right to expect some prior warning that they are wandering into some counterintuitive dark alley.

[Antrine]

Zulu spearman beat infantry. Quit whining...

[vmxa1]

They are in fact looking at addressing the combat to some degree and had a 4 roll type system implemented in a patch. They decide to back off for now.

So your are correct, it probably did hurt sales and caused rancor.
Weither they can and will make any signficant adjustments is yet to be seen.

[Johann Moritz]

Where's the challenge in defeating an obsolete army and not having a single casualty? Sometimes too powerful units get over-confident and make mistakes in the battle.
And it doesn't happen as frequently as to complain about it. It may seem a frequent case, but that's because it is such a notorious experience.

[Antrine]

Double dido, look what Mao did. He bragged that the allies trained and outfitted modern infantry just so he could have them. I think this comes down to unpredicable and random events which are necessary to good game play. It compensates for a poor AI, which it seems we will, yet be laboring with for a time.

And I am not apologizing for Firaxis or anyone else. Let's hammer them about tweaking the AI and a 'random event trigger' available in the Editor.

[steoc4]

I don't have too big a problem with the current system, if you have infantry and they have spearmen then you'll win the war, you'll just probably pick up a few casualties along the way, which isn't unrealistic. In real life technologically superior armies still suffer casualties when invading enemy territory. The only unrealistic thing is the fact that spearmen are fighting infantry at all, in the real world its just not possible for a country to be so much more advanced than it's neighbours. Perhaps there should be some sort of 'catch-up' system in the game when civs that are too far behind are automatically given free tech, to represent civilians bringing knowledge with them across borders, the media, whatever. It just doesn't make sense to have massive high tech metropolises one side of the border and ancient tribes the other, but thats getting off the point a lot.
I think they should keep the randomness of the battles though, if they were to make changes it would just perhaps to 'spread out' the units more, give spearmen 2, pikemen 4, musketmen 8, infantry 16, mech infantry 32 or something along those lines.
Another thing I think would make sense would be to incrementally improve your units with tech, say musketmen have 8 when you first get gunpowder, 9 when you get physics, 10 when you get metallurgy, by the time you get infantry they'd be up to say 13. So you keep getting small increases but you still get a jump when you go to the next unit. I think this would be realistic because every country in the world today has infantry, but the quality of their equipment can be vastly different, it would be more realistic to see the bigger nation with advanced infantry against a small nation with unadvanced infantry, as opposed to just infantry vs. spearmen which makes no sense. In line with my ideas earlier, once one nation gets advanced infantry anyone who's still on musketmen or whatever could automatically jump to low class infantry as they try to copy what the advanced nation has.
Anyway just some random thoughts of mine, I don't think the battles are too unrealistic its just the fact that such battles exist in the first place is the big problem.

[vmxa1]

It is not always a case of the lack of tech. Often the AI just did not upgrade all its units. IOW it may in fact have infantry, but also has some backward units.

So what you are suggesting is another bonus for the AI. Actually just play at Demi or better and you will not have to worry about fighting spear with infantry. If you are it will more likely be you that has the spear as happened to me at Sid. Well really not a spear, but a pike vs a riflemen.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by jimmytrick
Another spearman thread.

If only Firaxis would change their stance on providing info to the player. In SMAC you had a simple utility provided that would show battle odds before you attack. What would be the great sin of having that feature?

Firaxis did not provide the information necessary to explain combat in game. I would think that given the many complaints we have seen in the forums about combat, and given the fact that many people probably got frustrated and simply quit playing rather than look for help online, it is likely that Firaxis blew a lot of Civ4 sales. Folks are going to see Civ4 on the shelf and remember the incomprehensible combat from Civ3 and just pass on to another title. I hope Firaxis realizes its mistake and does a better job with Civ4 in this area.

People have a right to expect infantry to beat spearmen everytime. If not, they have a right to expect some prior warning that they are wandering into some counterintuitive dark alley.

The combat model is extremely simple and intuitive - anyone should be able to grasp the basic odds. Infantry, attack 6, vs Spears, defense about four when fortified behind walls. Each round the Infantry has a 3/5 chance of taking an hp off of the Spearman. Plus, why are you attacking with Infantry anyways? Oh, and people DON'T have a right to just expect "oh, this unit will win EVERY SINGLE TIME". In case you didn't notice, combat is based on a RANDOM number generator. Or do you support just having Spearmen automatically dieing when attacked by Infantry?