the whole spearman tank thingy

[:) Smiley]

Losing tanks to spearmen means you need to get Modern Armor.

[Dain]

You will always have these kinds of issues in games where realism clashes with playability issues, especially if the scope of the game is so broad like Civ's is in taking a Civilisation through so many different time periods.

How do you make the tank vs spearman both playable and realistic? I do not think you can. If you remove the mathematical odds for weaker units winning battles then it is just going to be just a technological race.

Reality is very few civilisations were so poorly advanced that they faced opponents who had a massive technological superiority. English in Africa, Spain in South America and a few others were examples of technological superiority but nobody every rolled up to the ancient Aztec empire with tanks.

In the real world the whole world benefits from technological development, moreso to the ones making the developments, but you just do not face severe technological variances in real life in our history.

But even with technological inferiority the Zulu did have have some notable victories over the English, as did the American Indians over the Americans, even in modern times the Vietnamese were able, with very limited technology, to have success against a technologically supoerior force in the Americans.

So should a spearman occassionally defeat a tank? As long as it is within acceptable mathematical ranges I do not have a problem with it.

If a civ is defending with spearmen and I have tanks then its as good as dead anyway, I do not really care about losses, never do I fight a battle where I am not prepared to take lots of casualties.

I expect to lose alot of units in fights even with careful use of tactics to minimise those losses. If I lose less than I expected then its just a bonus.

On the difficulty levels i play it is uncommon to see the AI with a severe technological disadvantage, they pass out tech to eachother like its worthless.

I think a much simpler solution is if you dislike seeing those unrealistic battles then increase the difficulty level, I can almost guarantee you wont be facing any spearman with your tanks in Sid mode. :P

If you are frequently outpacing the AI that fast in tech then you are playing on too low a level for it to be challenging.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Re: the whole spearman tank thingy

Originally posted by WackenOpenAir
i think most people just like more predictable outcomes of a battle.

So do i.

Also, in my oppinion should for example the chance that normal warrior in hills or fortified loses to a conscript attacking warrior be pretty darn small. Unlike it is now.

In order to decrease the chances of extreme outcomes, i would prefer ALL hitpoints to be doubled. (4-6-8-10 for conscript to elite)

An intriguing idea. I used the Combat Calculator to test this out, and found that the chances of the two events you have mentioned drop from :

the chance that normal warrior in hills...loses to a conscript attacking warrior

17.9% to 10% with your hp change, and

the chance that normal warrior...fortified...loses to a conscript attacking warrior

21% to 13%.

These are appreciable drops to approximately half of the previous occurence. Also, an hp change would be, as Catt suggests, easy to do for ALL units all at once with the editor. Then all you would need to do is adjust bombardment ROFs by an amount so Artillery are not useless (maybe just double their ROFs too). The one bugbear could be Armies. And that would be a reason for changing hp in preference to adjusting a/d values too. Aside from the need to carefully change every unit's values individiually, you would need to think long and hard about the army bonuses to these two values, as I think they are hardcoded.

[vmxa1]

"American Indians over the Americans, even in modern times the Vietnamese were able, with very limited technology, to have success against a technologically supoerior force in the Americans."

I think this one matches up well with the game. If you consider that some battles were won, but the total numbers were about 50K dead US and now Vietnam says they lost about 2M ( I think they count non combatants as well).

This is about what the spears vs tank would be in the game.

[Underseer]

Nicely written, Dain, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Honestly, the spearman vs. tank thing happens pretty rarely. As for the pikeman vs. calvary, someone correct me if I'm wrong but don't spear-using units get a defense bonus vs mounted units? Maybe that bonus shouldn't be applied to calvary since they use firearms, but all in all I don't have a problem with this either.

The nature of asymmetric combat annoyed me when I first started playing Civ3, but as time unfolds it bothers me less and less. Adjust to the way things are, change them in the editor (most games don't give you that option, be thankful), or play a different game. No need to get worked up about it.

[Underseer]

Oh, as for the American Indians vs. Americans, the disparity isn't quite what people think.

Between the first European settlers arriving and the Civil War, the difference in fire power was fairly low. The Europeans' weapons had more stopping power, range and accuracy, but an abysmal fire rate. By contrast a skilled indigenous warrior could pretty much fill the air with arrows using his short bow. Besides, those old muskets were awfully finicky and lots could go wrong with them. After the Civil War repeating rifles were invented which finally gave the guns full superiority over bows, but by then most natives had access to firearms through trade.

For example, Custer's Last Stand happened the way it did mostly because the Dakota had repeating rifles and Custer's men were using single shot firearms. In the end it was not differences in the technology of war that did in indigenous nations, but difference in population sizes.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Underseer
Nicely written, Dain, and I agree wholeheartedly.

Honestly, the spearman vs. tank thing happens pretty rarely. As for the pikeman vs. calvary, someone correct me if I'm wrong but don't spear-using units get a defense bonus vs mounted units? Maybe that bonus shouldn't be applied to calvary since they use firearms, but all in all I don't have a problem with this either.

The nature of asymmetric combat annoyed me when I first started playing Civ3, but as time unfolds it bothers me less and less. Adjust to the way things are, change them in the editor (most games don't give you that option, be thankful), or play a different game. No need to get worked up about it.

The pike bonus vs Horse units isn't in C3.

[Rasputin]

just use more than one cavalry , wipe them out ...

[Underseer]

The pike bonus vs Horse units isn't in C3.

I stand corrected. My overall conclusion remains, however.

[jeff76]

There's another solution to the original problem (first post of the Thread). It takes a bit more time but is a lot better. Leave the ancient units as they are, give one extra HP to every middle-ages units, two to industrial ones and three to modern ones. then you add attack points to artillery units according to the era. Let's say +1 for Middle-ages, +2 for industrial and +3 for modern.
This way you don't loose tank to spearman and artillery is not unbalanced

What do you all think about this ?

[Dain]

Originally posted by jeff76
There's another solution to the original problem (first post of the Thread). It takes a bit more time but is a lot better. Leave the ancient units as they are, give one extra HP to every middle-ages units, two to industrial ones and three to modern ones. then you add attack points to artillery units according to the era. Let's say +1 for Middle-ages, +2 for industrial and +3 for modern.
This way you don't loose tank to spearman and artillery is not unbalanced

What do you all think about this ?

If that makes you happy then go for it. For me the odds of finding a spearman when I have tanks is lower than the odds of the spearman beating my tank so its not really a concern for me.

Changing the hp will just make the game harder if you are missing a resource like iron early or saltpeter and you are using inferior units. In most cases you will struggle to take what you need off the AI if they are using better units and they have more hp.

[Rasputin]

i just hate fiddling withy the editor, i only like playing the virgin game....