Maybe the reason for inbalance impression?

[Jolard]

So many people have complained about the fact that they have the impression that the combat is way out of balance, and they have had "6 or 7" battles in a row where a primitive unit has beaten a high tech unit. I discovered something that some of you may already know, but I wonder if this is why these people see this experience, and others have said they see the balance as good. Maybe this is why people have such a huge negative impression of the combat game "imbalances".

One bad habit I have picked up, is I will sometimes save a game right before combat if I am desperate to win that battle. Then if I fail, I reload and try again. Well unfortunately (or fortunately for game play depending on your point of view) Firaxis must save whatever combat rolls occured in the before reload battle, and then it uses the same rolls for the battle after reloading. What do I mean? Try this out. Save the game, have a battle, and then reload and have the same battle immediately. You will see that no matter how many times you reload and do the battle again, you will get exactly the same result in exactly the same way. I am sure Firaxis did that to combat my bad habit, saving before battle and then reloading until you get a good result.

So how does this relate to the issue? I am wondering if these people who have these scewed results, where they see the same primitive unit defeat a high tech unit, were simply unlucky on their first attack (hey it can happen) and then reloaded and tried again and again. Then they get the impression that the system is hugely skewed, and unbalanced! I don't know but it may explain the difference in impressions.

My experience is that battles are pretty well balanced, and I like the fact that sometimes primitive units can win. However I never see this happen as much as so many people insist it does, and like I said, I wonder if this is the reason. Let me know what you think!

[General Ludd]

Actually, computers are incapable of generating random numbers - they can only simulate it. What they do is take a set of numbers that are always changing and put them through an equation to get the result, depending on what they use to generate the numbers, it can sometimes make it so that the results are always the same if you play it out exactly like you did last time. I bet if you do something different after you load, like move another unit first, you will get a different result.

[Altuar]

What he says.

I have experienced the same thing - in fact, it seems almost as if combat results are created before you battle, reconfirming the theory. It seems there is somthing wrong with the "randomizer," when you're unlucky, you're REALLY unlucky, you will lose HPs for 3 units in a row (all dice rolled are 1s, lets say) and then the tide will suddenly turn and you'll keep on winning. Thus, it seems that randomizer isnt working exactly as it should.

[dexters]

No. I don't think people are stupid enough to confuse repeated attempts to cheat the game from reloading a Sav file from a real imbalance in battle.

As it is obvious, the apparent imbalance occurs due to the probability system used in Civ 3. So that technically, a primitive unit like a Jungle Warrior, still has a considerable chance at defeating a Rifleman, a unit that is supposedely, several generations (technologically) ahead of the Jungle Warrior. What can be frustrating here is when superior units, that may have veteran or even elite status are mowed down in battle or suffer considerable battle damage. It is unintuitive, because we're all familiar with the concept that upgrading to a better unit yeild better results, and I must say it generally does yield better results. But the probability system is such that is SQUISHES that technological advantange, and you can be the most technologically advanced civilization in the world with an army of rifleman, and find that when war breaks out with the primitive aztecs and their jungle warriors, you lose a considerable amount of good veteran units.

[Jolard]

You are right of course, it may be that there are no truly random generated numbers, and you are also right that if I move or do something else before attacking it doesn't work out the same way, but it is still true that if I reload and run the battle again it always comes out the same way. I am not saying this is a bad thing, actually it is good, but I am saying that this may be why some people have the impression that low tech units can beat high tech units over and over. If they keep loading, and keep losing to a low tech unit, then they may get the impression that this happens way more than it really does, because the same battle result keeps occuring.