****in' game

[mrmitchell]

If you're GAURANTEED that something will win (or lose), it's not much more than moving around units is it?

[notyoueither]

Why not the attacker always wins, no matter the units involved? Then we could have civ chess!

[MrWhereItsAt]

Then you'd never build anything but fast moving units. And put them into armies.

Maybe an option for the next Civ-based boardgame? Civ chess?

And sky is right - it is rather easy to calculate the odds for yourself - but they are just that. Odds.

I just saw The Last Samurai, and I guess you could say this single Elite group of Samurai defeated a unit or two of Conscript riflemen on the attack, and then defeated a couple of units of Regular Riflemen on the defensive, after Cannon bombardment.

/me looks at what he wrote

Oh My God. It's happening! I'm gettting too much Civ!

[Solver]

Sometimes, on very rare occasions, the random number generator go nuts. Then, you attack a Spearman with two cavalries in a row, and both cavalries die. But that's vrey, very rare.

If you really have infantry when the enemy has spearmen, you'll clearly win the war anyway. Don't expect to win a war without casualties. And Cavalry are better attackers than Infantry anyway.

Look at the American army in Iraq. It's much more advanced technologically, but keeps taking casualties from the resistance. Look at the Zulu spearmen who could beat English riflemen.

Use your imagination. If an infantry dies against a spearman, you can suppose that the commanding officer of that unit got drunk, and they all tried to shoot with the wrong end of their rifles.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by skywalker


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?

You are wrong on most points. It is a simple combat system but it is not intuitive. Information in the game is not sufficient to explain or else why would people complain? Why would they start threads about combat?

If in Civ the Infantry's odds of victory are 71% but people perceptions are that in real life their odds would be more like 97% then the game is deceptive to the player and that is an indisputable fact. To fix that the developer only needed to nuture the players by providing information. They did not do that. That is all I am saying.

[Capt Dizle]

Let me be once again clear. I do not have a problem with the combat system. I have a problem with the lack of documentation. An odds calc would fix things right up.

[Antrine]

Agreed, Firaxis ADD – ‘Odds Calc with a smiley face explanation and player experience disclosure’. However, I additionally favor another idea I previously presented albeit a little tong and cheek. To wit, add a cycling pop-up window elaborating some bizarre but historically likely ‘excuse’ why you precious unit got its butt kicked.

[BulMaster]

Hmm I have the ai sending around 100 infantries at me and i can't stop them they are like a herd of sheep moving over a grass land as we all saw in droopy

[mrmitchell]

Let me be once again clear. I do not have a problem with the combat system. I have a problem with the lack of documentation. An odds calc would fix things right up.

IIRC, the original game manual clearly explained how to get odds.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by mrmitchell

IIRC, the original game manual clearly explained how to get odds.

I believe that they would like the documentation in game. Lets face it the game isn't clear on quite a few topics (linking resources is but one example) and while the civilopedia does contain useful information, it could be vastly improved and combat odds are just one area that are in need of information in the civilopedia.

What they truly need though is a way of figuring out odds at the time of attack (something akin to the Panzer General system would be most useful IMO) where you put the curser over the enemy and it gives you odds of defeating the enemy with the selected unit.

[Dain]

I do not think that the combat system is as clear cut as some believe it to be.

In simple fights with one versus one it is relatively simple, but I've played Civ for too long to believe it is that simple. I may be wrong, but I have adjusted my game-style to reflect what I believe are hidden mechanics and my success rate has increased dramatically since adopting them.

For example, I believe there is a hidden morale/fatigue factor which is a basic mechanic throughout the whole game and not modifiable in the editor. Again, I may be wrong but have had too much success with it.

I believe the more a unit is in combat in a given turn the more it fatigues and eventually anything will roll over it. We have all seen it with military civilisations. You are fighting a horde and you from regular, to veteran to elite and then some conscript rolls over you without you scratching it. Mathematically the odds of that happening with any type of consistancy is non-existant.

Also, units that move and fight in the same turn have suffered heavier casualties than units which are attacking from fresh. I will never attack a city on the march, because I have seen my tanks being defeated by spearmen when on the move.

I will also use alot of chaff units (if I have any, like conscripts) on a fresh unit. If it doesn't die its a bonus, if it does then it softens up the target for one of my better units even if it has not scratched it.

Bombardment is another issue. I used to never take catapults early in the game because even in large numbers they rarely damaged anything. Units that are being combarded seem to defend less effectively. I've tested it thousands of times and its now pary of my early strategy to utilise catapults because I suffer far fewer casualties when taking enemy cities.

The size of a unit stack seems to also have a morale/fatigue factor. You can run your own tests. I have had a massive stack of warriors take over a city defended by a couple of fortified musketmen behind walls. Mathematically they should all crash and burn. Units in large stacks in general seem to perform better than normal, it is why it can be extemely difficult to take over with a large number of crappy defenders.

Again, I might be wrong but there is too much consistancy and evidence to suggest that there are other contributing factors which have an influence. If there are not then there is something very seriously wrong with the mathematical odds of winning battles, because the 'miracle' victory occurs far too frequently.

I think it is also a safety mechanism because you can have a civilisation that is unlucky enough to be severely limited in the type of military units you can build. If all the fights were too clinical in terms of attack vs defense then in most cases you would struggle to ever recover from a poor starting position.

I can still defeat civilisations who are in the second age with archers and spearmen. That should not be 'mathematically' possible.

[Jaybe]

Dain, while I believe your "beliefs" are not technically incorporated into the game (I think it is due to your "perceptual experience" of the RNG), I definitely do not dispute those beliefs. Such philosophies enhance one's immersion into the game experience.

[UnityScoutChopper]

That said, heading up the attack with the weakest units ("I will also use alot of chaff units (if I have any, like conscripts) on a fresh unit.") may not be a wise move, since that gives the defender a chance to make morale gains.

USC

[shmily_dana]

Maybe Mel Gibson was leading the spearman against the evil British infantry in his homeland...

Seriously, I don't imagine a Civ battle to be a one day event. Your unit(s) are attempting to occupy enemy territory for at least a year (or up to 50 years...) i.e. They are having to break formation, make camp, eat dig latrines, etc for the whole turn. Guys have to get out of their tanks. Lots can happen to a single unit in that time period.

It makes sense that a unit can regain full strength in home territory. They can recruit new people...

[Dain]

Originally posted by UnityScoutChopper
That said, heading up the attack with the weakest units ("I will also use alot of chaff units (if I have any, like conscripts) on a fresh unit.") may not be a wise move, since that gives the defender a chance to make morale gains.

USC

It normally does not matter to me (late in the game), on the harder levels I usually play a military civilisation (because the computer gets a retarded head start) and head for communism and end up mass producing tons of conscript units when I go to war. I also look to have close to 3x the number of cities that I would normally have in a production oriented civilisation.

Even if I turn some enemy units into elite they are brought down by numbers and artillery alone. The computer is as stupid in Sid mode as it is in Warlord. Its predictability makes it uncompetitive no matter how much of a head start it gets.

I usually have plenty of bombardment support so my conscripts vs whatever they have is usually an even fight and at the end of a conflict I typically turn at least a third of those conscript units into elites.

That is a high coversion for me because I lose very few elite units and they do grow on trees. :P