We Need to Fix Combat Ourselves!

[Jason Beaudoin]

Is there anyway that we can create a modification of the bic files so that weapons of more advanced ages don't get killed by weaker units? Do you think that adjusting the combat numbers of some units would make a difference?

We need to make musket men more powerful than the spearman... much more powerful! But if we do so, we have to make the value of the gunpowder tech much greater.

We need some think tanks here to debate what the numbers should be. Any takers?

[Fidel]

it is absolutely crucial to have weaker units kill moder ones
please take some time to ponder on the abstractiveness of the game and the fact that a warrior in 1900AD is something like an angry mob and that spearman is a mujahedeen.
late game mop up in civ2 made me sick with all tank blitzes over wast arrays of land and 1-turn annihilation of a civ. combat in civ3 rocks.

[zapperio]

Isn't game balance a little more important then whether musket men can kill spearmen or not. I for one would not be happy knowing that I had no chance against the horde of musket men coming out of France with only spearmen as defenders in my city.

In four games on regent I’ve yet to see a head-scratcher. In my experience it is superior tactic and support that wins every war in Civ3. You want to mess with that?!?

Zap

[challenge]

A number of threads have suggested multipliers running from two to five times the current levels for the A in ADM. The gist has been standard for Ancient units and multipliers of 2/3/5 for each successive age. Since I have been playing slow and not pushing beyond the Ancient era -- something that may change with my current game -- I haven't been looking for the reported problems as yet.

I don't see any problenm with the levels of the ancient age in any area I've studied -- which is why I'm progressing slowly. I'm looking at each aspect of the game in detail as I go.

I have read a lot about the problems of taking on spearmen with tanks, but I am reminded of the Ethiopians vs the Italians in WWII. Those spearmen (an off-shoot of the Zulu, by the way ) ground the Itallian tanks to a standstill. I don't know of any report of an actuall win:lost ratio. In other words, while everyone is griping that this is a "bug" no one is actually providing the number of battles lost to spearmen vs the number of spearmen lost to tanks.

[Dominator_Jones]

Last night I was glad for the way it was balanced. My peaceful Indian nation was cruising along having finally just barely gained the scientific lead even though we were trapped in a corner of a small island, when out of the blue my long time friends and neighbors the Zulu's and Japanese declared total annihilation on me. For a few years my poor swordsmen, spearmen, pikemen held off the advance of hordes of tanks and cavalry while Zulu bombers ravaged my infrastructure. The numbers were too great though and we were overrun. Just for fun they got every other nation in the world to declare war against me as well and no one would hear my plea's for peace. My advisor told me they were evil, I guess I should have listened.

I don't think that there is too much imbalance with it. I may have held off a few tanks with low tech units but generally it took 2 or 3 low tech units to do it so I think it balanced out nicely. There were really no surprises or one spearman out in the wilderness holding off a tank.

[General Ludd]

Wouldn't it be better to just have the AI upgrade and delete obsolete units?

[theautarch]

Well I'd first like to say I am a brand new civer. With that out of the way, I did experience a jaw dropping episode. I sent in my cavalry units and infantry to destroy a Persian city. First unit comp defended with was a rifleman, dead, second unit popped up to be a pikeman, and all my units were lost. "WHAT!", I said, "I'll show him." So I went and created some swordsman, in the industrial age, waited a few turns for them to arrive at said city, and happily removed the pikeman from existence. The rest is history.

[WhiteElephants]

Rather than compare the way you think combat should work in the game, or in a real world setting, I think you should consider if the way it works improves game play.

At face value it would seem that musketeers should defeat spearmen, but then you'd have to ask the british riflemen at Rourke's Drift about that, or how about the U.S. Marines at Khe Sahn, or the Russian conspricts who invaded Afghanistan -- the list goes on.

I think the most important issue should be playability, but if the arguement is for "realism" there are plenty of example that contradict what would normally be deemed as "realistic".

Consider this, the Gulf War was nearly over by now and Iraq had one of the most advanced armies in the world, yet the war in Afghanistan rages on. How does that fit the paradigm?

What I'm suggesting is that there are different ways units were used through out history. For instance the development of trench warfare and machinguns changed the role of the infantryman as did the eveloution of artillery. You could no longer expect to charge an enemy's position and survive nor could you line up in columns and march across the battle field. Same thing goes for the invention of the tank. To hunker down in a trench and expect to not be flanked by a more mobile army was asking to be cut off from supplies, surrounded, and killed. Yet the basic jist of the infantryman didn't change all that much from WWI to WWII, in fact some of the same weapons were being used. The only real change was the way the war was fought and in a game like Civ it would be very difficult to reflect that change and that is probably why you see the system in place as it is.

[kimmygibler]

If you want accurate win loss ratios, go to the civ3 results calculator site. I don't know where it is now, but it was posted on the forms a while back

[morb]

http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html

[Spagina]

I've become semi-accustomed to the combat in CivIII. While I have had many head scratchers in my game, I just basically gave up on mano-a-mano fights. I use tons of artillery, and I mean TONS! I probably have about 40 artillery pieces and 20 tanks I cart around. I roll in the artillery, just annihilate the defenses, (Meanwhile annihilating the city and it's people leaving it worthless to keep.) Then I just roll in the tanks. I've found this to be the best way to combat the computer in this game. Now for the tank being killed by a knight... grrrrrrr!!!!

[shammy]

i just eased my frustration with civ3 editor..

i basically divided the units to 5 categories and adjusted their power accordingly..

i didnt touch ancient or early medieval units
early industrial units are much more powerful than late medieval.. and late industrial are somewhat more powerful than early industrial.. the biggest gap i made was between industrial and modern units. now, if someone wants to kill my modern tanks or modern mechanized infantry.. he has to use modern units, anything older than industrial wont even make a dent on it.

i feel succesful so far.. AI can no longer sink my battleships with iron clads or frigates.. under any circumstances. nor can an archer destroy my marine group

[Jokka das Trevas]

Well, someone said it wouldn't be fun if musketeers attacked him while he had onde spearmen...

But man... I dunno, but this game seems too out of sync for me! :/

What can you say about veteran PANZERS that get mauled to less than half-life by hoplites? Compare their A-D values, there gotta be something wrong here...

[Yoleus]

Re: We Need to Fix Combat Ourselves!

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
Is there anyway that we can create a modification of the bic files so that weapons of more advanced ages don't get killed by weaker units

Ok, so you would like to modify it deeply, making it strangely more similar to Civ2 (on ONE aspect, I know). Why don't you rant loudly for the "features" you do not like? Why don't you contribute to the development of Freeciv instead?

[Earthling7]

I am crawling into the Modern Era for the first time. I just rolled over the Aztecs! I had tanks, they had Musket Men and Spearmen. They were no match.

I have no complains. I find war more satisfying in Civ3 than Civ2.