A question about Civ-3 combat-model

[Ralf]

Can you attack an enemy 15-unit army with a similar number of indevidual units (attacking one by one, all within the same turn), and still have the same attack-effect as if your 15 units where forged to an army instead?

I really hope not.

[TechWins]

This kind of goes with stacking armies, doesn't it? Ah it doesn't matter.

Anyways, no I think it will be much more valuable to stack your armies. When attacking with this army your best attacking unit (determined by attacking capabilities and health) will attack first, then the second best attacking unit, and so on. You may not need to start attacking with your second best attacking unit, you will only if your first unit can't kill the opposition. The thing is your first unit won't fight until death, unlike fighting individually. The same applies for defence.

The reason why you can't have all the units stats added up and combined as one unit is because that unit would become way too strong. If you took 10 tanks (10 att) and made them one army it would then have 100 att. So the way they have made stacking armies will not unbalance the game.

[Gramphos]

Re: A question about Civ-3 combat-model

Originally posted by Ralf
Can you attack an enemy 15-unit army with a similar number of indevidual units (attacking one by one, all within the same turn), and still have the same attack-effect as if your 15 units where forged to an army instead?

I really hope not.

I don't think so. What we have heard of armies isn't mush, but I think they stated that: Units of an army would attack/defend one by one until they are almost dead, then retreat and let the next unit attack. In that way you would lose more units by attacking with single soldiers compared to attacking with an army.

[Ralf]

So the end result of 15 indevidual units attacking 15 similar units forged to an army, is that although you probably can wound all 15 of them to red/yellow-status, you can only do that at the (too high) prize of getting all your own indevidually attacking units killed off?

OK, I guess I suspected that already. I just wanted to be sure there werent any other factors involved.

[TechWins]

Ralf, your first paragraph was put together very unclearly for me, could you please re-write it again so I could understand? Thanks.

Also Ralf, what do you feel should have been done with stacking combat?

[MORON]

How about combined arms bouses?

[Inverse Icarus]

well they dont work together, they attack in succession.

but i did read that Catapults arent units in their own right, they muct be fired by other troops.

[TechWins]

but i did read that Catapults arent units in their own right, they muct be fired by other troops.

Yeah that's true, that will also apply to artillery. I've seen a screenshot that proves it. I will later try to find that particular screenshot.

[ByzCat]

Ooooo! That sounds fun. I always wished I could capture unattended seige weapons. Hopefully the unit doing all the firing will also add some defence points to it.

[Grumbold]

All the units line up and fight a tournament one by one. The opposition, being gentlemen too, allow any wounded unit to retire to the back of the queue when hurt. Eventually one side or the other will have no unwounded units left and promptly get massacred (one by one). No dirty tricks like exploiting superior numbers and flanking the enemy are allowed. To butcher a famous quote, God no longer fights on the side of the biggest legions, but the strongest individual ones.

It's been a long time since we heard anything about combat though so things may be different now. You can probably tell I'm hoping they reconsider their approach.

[Urban Ranger]

I certainly hope they would include combined arms bonuses, and also bonuses for certain unit types (e.g. Alphine troops in mountains, etc.).

[campmajor!]

I kind of liked the way ctp handled this: with an extra attribute called range. So if you fight with an army, your ranged units are behind the "footmen". I thought that was quite realistic!

I can only hope that civ3 will come up with a model that is as good or even better can the one of ctp...

[Grim Legacy]

Originally posted by Grumbold
All the units line up and fight a tournament one by one. The opposition, being gentlemen too, allow any wounded unit to retire to the back of the queue when hurt. Eventually one side or the other will have no unwounded units left and promptly get massacred (one by one). No dirty tricks like exploiting superior numbers and flanking the enemy are allowed. To buthser a famous quote, God no longer fights on the side of the biggest legions, but the strongest individual ones.

It's been a long time since we heard anything about combat though so things may be different now. You can probably tell I'm hoping they reconsider their approach.

Great post.

I do think, however, that this is one of the aspects of Civ3 that will have to be really playtested before it can be judged. Hmmm well then again, maybe that goes for all aspects of Civ3! :P

[Inverse Icarus]

No dirty tricks like exploiting superior numbers and flanking the enemy are allowed.

sure they are, now i can attack your stack of 10 with my 3 stacks of 15 from 3 different angles

[Inverse Icarus]

also, dont forget that until u get Nationalism you can only have 1 stack per every 2 cities, so chances are a lot of people will have the classic civ2 milirary style, flanking, gangbanging and all