Please Fix The Combat

[treedom]

Originally posted by Zizka
I feel your pain. Nothing like having 3 Elite Legions lose to a warrior. Look caesar and his crack troops just got routed by asterix!!
Z

good one!

[Saber_Cherry]

Solutions?

Well, so far there has been a lot of griping, mutiple supportive anecdotes, and the stray illiterate idiot posting things like
I'm really sorry all of u chieftan players rolling swordsmen over w/ tanks can't see that

Of course, providing a solution is in Firaxis's hands (especially to the army thing... sounds like they are not only too weak when they work correctly, but don't even work correctly because of a programming bug... just a suspicion from anecdotes of "runs in the rolls" of armies). However, perhaps some suggestions would be helpful. The only 4 I have seen are:

1) Add more hitpoints
2) Make modern units immune to ancient ones
3) Bring back firepower
4) Quit whining - you are in a "ladnslide of ignorance"

Personally, I dislike 2, 3, and 4. But that doesn't mean 1 is the best. So are there any other suggestions, or do you support one of these 4?

To clarify: The problem is that (for example) Tanks lose to Spearmen. This should happen, maybe, 1 time in a year of playing Civ 3, yet is has happened multiple times in the same game for some people; thus, it is occuring too frequently.

Please respond with a new solution or a recommendation of 1, 2, 3, or 4, so that the matter can be effectively resolved, with player input.

[yavoon]

thats wut it is. a landslide of newbies, EVERY anecdote I've seen is of THEIR tank losing to ENEMY swordsmen. never once(tho I confess I dont read every post) has NEONE complain of THEIR swordsmen beating an ENEMY tank. this is stereotypical self serving newbie posting.

they play their game, gain a huge technological lead, get an assured victory, and during the cleanup they're griping that they are losing units. more newbieness. ur so quick to pull the trigger finger on "this is broken" or this "needs to change" is more irrational behavior.

all my points have been valid, and have never been addressed, everytime all you guys ever pickup on are my adjectives, cuz thats all you care about. you don't need real thought.

[WhiteElephants]

quote:

Originally posted by Zizka
I feel your pain. Nothing like having 3 Elite Legions lose to a warrior. Look caesar and his crack troops just got routed by asterix!!
Z

I guess you're not very familiar with Spartacus then, eh?

[Sevorak]

Theoretically, the combat should be fine.

Maybe what we're seeing is a programming flaw instead - a dependent pseudo Random Number Generator. I've had quite a few archer-warrior and swordsman-spearman battles, and often the result will seem correct. In fact, at the lower levels this is much less evident just because one sided battles dealing with attack and defence factors of 1, 2, 3 can reasonably be expected. But every fifth or sixth battle or so, no matter what unit I'm using against what other unit, what will happen is that combat will apparently proceed as normal, then the defending unit simply stops taking damage and the attacker then takes damage until it dies or withdraws. Let's say that in a Cavalry vs. Pikeman case (6 on 3 for simplicity's sake), random numbers between 1-9 are generated, with 1,2,3, meaning Pikeman Hit, and 4-9 meaning Cavalry Hit. Could it be possible that Civ III's pRNG ends up being dependent, meaning that, say, a low number might tend to be followed by another low number (resulting in a series of defensive hits) or a high number, depending on how the program calculates things? This might also explain the other end of results - such as when my Riflemen successfully defended against incoming Cavalry, but died to the Archer that came after it.

Since players who notice this usually are the conquest types who do a lot of attacking, perhaps a dependence might be hidden, for example, when a Cavalry unit takes down a Spearman without loss of hit points? It doesn't seem to be a complaining issue because - "it should be that way" - but might the internal pRNG be simply stuck the other way in those situations?

Now obviously this isn't happening in all battles. It could be, however, that Civ III's pRNG reacts in a dependent fashion to certain seed numbers.

In summary - is there anyone familiar with computer pRNG's here that can test that assumption? Is it possible that the pRNG, under certain conditions, becomes dependent and causes results to be followed by similar results?

Just some odd thoughts.

-Sev

[Madine]

Actually it comes down to a choice between:

Highly predictable combat results, or

Occasionally unrealistic combat results

Anyway I would say that a civ with vastly superior tech should be able to easily defeat their enemies despite some anomoulous combat results.

[CyberGnu]

Yavoon, before I returned my copy of the game to the store I got in second on the power curve on Deity level. The damn Roman launched a spaceship on me. I don't have a problem with the difficulty of the game.

Calling me a newbie because it annoys me when an impi kills an army of modern tanks is quite offensive, however. Please learn some manners.


Sevorak, that is quite possibly the most intelligent post I've seen on the CivIII forum so far... Hmm, have you checked out the Off-Topic? We could always use another clever fellow over there. Oooh, the dip forum too, if you are in to Diplomacy.

[Cyanide]

Okay, now, look. I'm not saying that my armor should defeat every spearmen they encounter, especially spearmen fortified in a big city, or on a mountaintop, or whatever. But I think three of them should. One spearmen != 3 armor, I don't care whether the armor are defending or attacking. No, I'm not a newbie, who throws mech. inf. at everything because that's all I want to build. I know what to use to attack, and what to use to defend (and to pray when all I've got to defend with is a horseman or two). I do think the era of a unit should matter. Look, a musketman should be able to defend a town fairly reliably against a smallish force of, say, two horsemen or (grrrr...) jaguar warriors. But not necessarily againt several knights (depends on walls, city size, etc.).

I'm not going to sit here and claim that the AI is the only one cheating. I've won plenty of battles I should've lost - an attacking spearman (why?) just shouldn't defeat cavalry THAT often (sheepish grin). I think a "fair" combat system is worth giving up these bs combat results in my favor for. I'll use CivII (my paragon of computer gaming, to be sure) as an example. I rarely had my tanks, bombers, etc. lose to, say, fortified pikemen. And if they did, the next one wouldn't. And IF it did, the next one damn sure wouldn't. If I lost a stronger, newer, better unit to an wimpier, older unit, I'd just shake my head, and go on with the attack. If that was my last unit, to bad for me. That's what I wanted in CivIII, with maybe more options (bombardment, etc.), and more units. That's just not what I got - and to say that I'm disappointed is an understatement. I thought Firaxis was specifically avoid this. I mean, I'm sure I read somewhere that phalanx defeating armor was a thing of the past. Which past? On what level? For the record, I'm also fairly disgusted with artillery units, but for completely different reasons.

I wonder if the combat system can even be patched. I'm not much of a programmer, especially on this level. But without a good patch, or even, God forbid, an expansion pack, that addresses this issue in some way, I can't play this game much longer. The shiny look, and the bells and whistles just don't make up for the lack of substance.

Also, in defense of people who haven't played the game but discuss it anyway, I applaud this decision. This kind of restraint is impressive, at least in my opinion. I love to hear from people who think so much about Civ without even playing. These are people who I'd love to meet in real life and just bs with about the game.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Leonidas
[b]quote:
Likewise with Civ3, the very idea that a pikeman can take out a tank, or that an Ironclad can sink a battleship is laughable. Some have tried to compare the pikeman in these instances to the Mujahadeen or the warriors in Ethiopia. They don't compare - the Mujahadeen and Ethiopians all had rifles. The Mujahadeen also have machineguns, mortars and bazookas. They are poor - yes - but they still hav very real modern weapons. I wonder how they would have done against the Soviets armed only with pikes?

Where did the Ethiopians and Mujahadeen get their weapons? Did they develop them on their own and build them in factories or acquire them from other nations (civs?) that had the ability to make them?

Technology gets around. So consider the 'spearmen' units your tank units die attacking some lightly-armed (compared to your mighty armies) units with weapons they managed to purchase from unscrupulous arms dealers. Maybe even from your own civ.

They just fooled you because they didn't change their unit animations.

If that is hard to accept then: the ADM stats are just numbers. The computer doesn't care what weapons the unit assigned to it is supposed to have and if they are obsolete.

(So maybe I should just say, I find it credible and leave it at that...)

There are other more important problems with the combat engine. Like air superiority and the abilities of armies. That and naval and air units should be vulnerable to bombard attacks.

Personally, I think you should be able to remove and add (non-transport) land units from an army. Detachments, if you will. Add a hitpoint to the army 'unit' and consider that the staff. Maybe add some way to combine the attack and defense values. Say, the highest of each times 1.5 is the army's current attack and defense value. As for movement, go look into what it can take to move an army in an organized fashion these days. It can get pretty chaotic.

I haven't had the opportunity to get far into the game and haven't been able to play with armies too much so scream if I'm hitting on anything that already exists for them.

Also, I've been up about 21 hours at this point so my mind is getting a bit mushy. L8r

[Zizka]

>>I feel your pain. Nothing like having 3 Elite Legions lose to a warrior. >>Look caesar and his crack troops just got routed by asterix!!
>>Z

>>I guess you're not very familiar with Spartacus then, eh?

Actually I am. But that's not the point (spartacus' gladiator revolt woudl actually be swordsmen.. likely veteran). My example is WARRIORS.. egad its obvious you missed the joke. Your loss.

Summary of game: I came, I saw, they kicked my ass.

Either that or my level of classical quotation is slipping.



Z

[Raleigh]

Barnacle Bill had the right idea all along. Ancient/medieval units should never defeat industrial/modern units.

Now, I know in certain environments, bows and arrows, even in the modern area could be effective, like in vietnam, during ambushes or something. However, you cannot convince me that phalanxes, thousands of men with spears marching in formation, not covered by camaflauge, charging a tank or holding off a tank advance, will win.

Why oh why Civ 3 could not accept this complaint from Civ 1, civ 2, CTP 1 & II players is far beyond me.

[Steve Clark]

Originally posted by Raleigh
Barnacle Bill had the right idea all along. Ancient/medieval units should never defeat industrial/modern units.

Now, I know in certain environments, bows and arrows, even in the modern area could be effective, like in vietnam, during ambushes or something. However, you cannot convince me that phalanxes, thousands of men with spears marching in formation, not covered by camaflauge, charging a tank or holding off a tank advance, will win.

Why oh why Civ 3 could not accept this complaint from Civ 1, civ 2, CTP 1 & II players is far beyond me.

Because no one in their right mind would "charge" with phalanxes against any unit. Put them in a defensive formation on favorable ground and then you can draw a tank into getting bogged down and captured.

[CyberGnu]

Because no one in their right mind would "charge" with phalanxes against any unit. Put them in a defensive formation on favorable ground and then you can draw a tank into getting bogged down and captured.

I'll be sure to tell that to the zulus who were killed by the thousands facing british machineguns...

Out of curiosity, how do you rationalize the standard killing of tanks by charging knights? The Polish cavalry would be more than interested in your strategic insights, I believe. Of course, they actually had guns... While knights are supposed to have lances, I think. Special magic powerlances, perhaps?

Of course. I'm dumb. There is a simple solution. They are Jedi Knights. Why didn't I think of that? All I have to do is to build a few Gungas.

[Raleigh]

Just get jarjar binx to lead them.