Technological Superiority Doesn't Matter in War

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by dexters
LOL. The Euro centricity of the boards is painfully obvious.

The Japanese, during its a prolonged civil war in the 1600's have developed a layered musket firing formation where the front row would fire, the second row would aim, and the third row would reload. This cycle ensures constant pressure on the enemy as the firing line never pauses to reload because someone is always firing while the other lines are loading or aiming.

The man who devised this strategy was Oda Nobunaga a great Samurai who almost united Japan. He was betrayed by a top general in a rebellion and he committed suicide. The man who succeeded him, Tokugawa , is the Shogun you see in the game. It should also be said the formating firing strategy did not filter into Europe until about a hundred years a later.

Odo Nobunaga lived in the 1500s, not 1600s, which may be why you're confused, but multiple ranks of musketeers firing in turn was well known in Europe by that time. The Battle of Ceresole, for example in 1544... Oda was 10 years old at the time, I believe, not to mention on the other side of the world, so I'm not sure how much credit he can be given for the idea.

--Robert

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by mmike87
Dexter,
"Again, I ask you folks to be aware of defensive bonsuses in battle. And if one who likes to play the "reality" card, let me remind you that rag tag warriors hiding in rugged mountains can destroy entire Tank divisions as the Russians experienced in Afghanistan in the 1980s. So yes, defensive bonsuses are realistic. "

Not a fair comparison. Our freedom fighting friends were armed with heavy machine guns, anti-tank mines, and shoulder-launched anti-tank rockets. Not to mention Stinger missiles.

They did not have spears and longbows.

I do not dispute the formulas. I dispute the results that I see, over and over again.

Not to mention his example simply didn't happen.... The 'rag tag warriors' never came close to destroying anything resembling an entire armored division, though on a good day they might destroy an entire tank. Most likely not though. An APC, maybe, or more likely a truck. Let's do remember when talking about the Russian-Afghan war that the Russians lost 15,000, the Afghans 1,500,000. The main reason Afghanistan has been moderately resistant to conquest is that there isn't all that much there that people want to conquer....

--Robert

[Setsuna]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Jbird, I don't mind at all having to use more units. But only when it makes sense to do so!

WWI and II saw millions of men in uniform BECAUSE THE SIDES WERE EVENLY MATCHED. Contrarily, Cortez (IIRC) conquered the ~15 million Inca kingdom with a few hundred men... Armed with firearms and the knowledge of superior tactics.

Er, I'm probably shooting myself in the foot here since I agree with your viewpoint, but as a matter of fact..

..The reason Cortez defeated the Aztecs was not just superior technology. It was cunning diplomacy, and the Aztecs piss poor political system that allowed them to be defeated.

The Aztecs, though they had subjugated many other tribes, never really assimilated them. They never left Aztec representatives there in order to maintain control; the only thing keeping them at their heel was the fact that the Aztecs could smash them to bits if they wanted to.

Then Cortez showed up. You can probably figure out what happened. Even still Cortez had a really rough time actually beating them (Even outnumbered the Aztecs were by NO means screwed - they even came close to killing Cortez.) Somewhere along the way it became a myth about how the Evil Europeans Came and Conquered the Helpless Natives (Ha!)

There was an interesting chapter in the book "What If?" about what would have happened if Cortez had been killed and his men routed. It speculates that the United States would have run into a native nation, replete with firearms. It would have hindered their expansion to say the least..

[CyberGnu]

WhiteElefant: If you spend 100 hours on making a rifle, at the end of those 100 hours you have a rifle. Period. If you spend a 100 hours training to use a longbow, that is less than one years worth of training... And a year later you need to do it again. And again. And again.

And surely you realize that there must be some reason the longbow never achieved widespread use... Not to mention why both bows and crossbows disappeared when the rifle was invented.

Also, I just told GP I beat the game on deity. I don't need 'better tactics'. In fact, a large part of my tactics was exploiting the flaws of the broken system... Swamping with low tech units, for example.

The questions remains, however: If combat doesn't have some sense of historical accuracy, why is the game called civilization?

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants


I was unaware that, as well as having two arms and one functioning eye, you also had to be a magician to use a longbow. I suppose cleaning and loading a rifle properly in order to prevent it from blowing up in your face is a regular walk in the park.

And lord knows mining for iron, melting in down, and forming it into a barrel, a chamber, a trigger, and a cocking arm that fit snuggly into a pre-craved length of wood is far easier than the tedium of chopping down a tree and carving it into a bow. We all know how scares trees are. And making bullets is as easy as tying your shoes.

Not a magician, just trained all your life in its use. Ever wonder why only the English used the longbow, and them not very long? Because no one else could get the trained manpower. Even England had to pass laws requiring men to spend a certain number of hours each month practicing. There was a saying that to train a longbowman you began by training his grandfather. It's not something you can just pick up and use effectively. A bit of trivia for you; archaeologists can regularly identify longbowman skeletons by the misshapen vertebrae and shoulder bones, deformed by the constant practice with a 120# pull bow.

England also had to pass laws to protect the yew tree, which was getting scarce and the only good source of wood for the longbow. I believe it doesn't take as long to mine and smelt iron, etc., etc., as to plant a tree and wait for it to grow to maturity.

[CyberGnu]

Setsuna, IIRC, Cortez & Company didn't exactly kill all 15 million indians by themselves... But they did, however, kill roughly ten thousand warriors in their first violent conflict, taking the Emperor (Montezuma?) prisoner in the process.

This first conflict was very much technology driven. The indian weapons couldn't penetrate the iron armour of the Spaniards, while Spanish steel and gunpowder killed with every stroke...

In the end the Spaniards held the Emperor, effectively paralyzing the entire nation... Not to mention having killed a large portion of the nobility since they all formed the honorguard.

The next part of the conflict was driven by the spaniards vastly superior knowledge of statecraft, which in turn was possible because of literacy and a more advanced society.

Have you ever read 'Guns, Germs and Steel'? If you haven't, check it out, I'm sure you'll like it.

[davwhitt]

Originally posted by WhiteElephants
I can agree that using a longbow takes a bit more finesse, but I think the cost in terms of time and resources required to produce one rifle are far and away more expensive than the time and resources required to train a man to properly use a bow.

I guess that explains why the South lost - Lee should have been fighting Grant with longbowmen instead of riflemen! Seriously though you are wrong about the costs of producing one rifle vs one bow. The resources of an Industrialized nation (the sort which would produce riflemen) far outweigh the resources of a Medieval nation (the sort which would produce longbowmen) so while it may have cost Victorian England little to produce a rifle it would have cost Medieval England far more to produce the same rifle, assuming it even could.

[ProfessorPhobos]

Originally posted by F18fett
mharmless:

That's a different case. The Taliban's tanks are old pieces of crap. In Civ 3, it's assumed that they're the best ones you've got. American tanks have hatches that can lock. Also, the Northern Alliance uses grenades and other weapons like that to blow up the tanks while riding.

Not really......they've got T-55's, which aren't bad tanks. They're just 1950's vintage. Very reliable, and should do just fine against horsemen with grenades. Hell, would you call a Panzer an "Old Piece of Crap".(Provided it's been maintained.)

As for what countries are building tanks- the British have the Challenger, which is independent of the Abrams, the French have the LeClerc, the Germans the Leapard 2, the Russians the T-85, the Chinese the Type 90(or is it Type 97? I can't remember.) The T-85 and Type 90 are similiar but the Chinese have made quite a lot of improvements. Japan and Israel use Abrams designs, IIRC. I believe Sweden, Italy, and Switzerland all made their own tanks, but most of them aren't in use nowadays.

The best tanks in the world (by far!) are the Challenger and the Abrams. Both tanks can cut through lesser tank forces like butter.(When properly employed, with proper training.)

[Ludwig]

The combat system in CivIII is only frustrating if your sole frame of reference is the CivII combat system.

CivII's combat system contained the single most ludicrous element ever introduced into any remotely-military game EVER - namely, the "single unit kills stack of 20 units by attacking one unit" factor.

Because of this, we became conditioned to avoid stacks, when not in cities or fortresses. Actually, pretty much the key strategic challenge of combat in CivII was finding a way to avoid having your units end their turn in the open in stacks - and trying to find a way to see to it that your opponent's units DID end up that way. As a result, if you played CivII a lot, you ended up being a disciple of the Cult of the Single Unit.

Single units in movement.

Single units attacking.

Single units holding mountain fortresses.

Single units without support mowing through an enemy Civ from one ocean to the other.

Well, CivIII's combat system is different. It is more in the tradition of military simulations, like the old unit-intensive SSI and Avalon Hill games, then it is like the Chess-like system of CivI and CivII. And the combat system will frustrate and outrage you until you get over the Cult of the Single Unit and join the Church of Attrition.

You have to build LOTS of units. You have to move them and use them in large, powerful STACKS, preferably of combined arms. You have to be prepared to take casualties. You have to have reserves. You have to provide for reinforcement and replacement.

The single unit in the open is now, if the enemy can get at him in any strength, very quickly a single dead unit. And that is how it should be.

If a city is under determined enemy attack, you have to have defense in depth, or you have to be in a position to provide replacement troops, or the city will fall. And it doesn't matter if you have tanks and the other guy has knights. If you can't reinforce, you lose the position. If your stack is too weak, you lose the position.

Everyone is complaining about how they lost a city because the single tank they had defending it was killed by longbowmen. Good Lord, what led you to believe you could hold a city with a single unit? Funny, I haven't heard of pikemen taking a city that was defended by two tanks and three infantry - with potential reserves nearby connected by road or rail. Maybe that city's defenders would take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the city. If two tanks and three infantry were attacked in the open, they might take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the position.

If the defending forces were represented by two tanks and three infantry, and they were attacked by seven spearmen, and one of the infantry died and one of the tanks was damaged but the city was held - would this constitute a "broken" combat system? I don't think so. In any combat, regardless of relative technological superiority, you have to be prepared to lose SOME of your troops. The superior force just will lose fewer troops, and will hold the ground at the end of the day.

[F18fett]

Not really......they've got T-55's, which aren't bad tanks. They're just 1950's vintage. Very reliable, and should do just fine against horsemen with grenades. Hell, would you call a Panzer an "Old Piece of Crap".(Provided it's been maintained.)

The key word there is maintained. Do you think the Taliban has the resources to make sure their tanks are in the same condition as U.S. tanks? No wonder the Northern Alliance can open the hatch and kill everyone inside, the Taliban probably lost the lock on it long ago.

Ludwig:

The thing is the technology, not number of units. Civil War era cavalrymen would mop the floor with a longbowman. My war wasn't between two equal strength powers, it was between an Industrial Era power and an Ancient/Medieval power. I can't think of an unadvanced nation that managed to succesfully hold off a much more technologically advanced nation in combat.

[Venger]

Put down the crack pipe...

Originally posted by Ludwig
The combat system in CivIII is only frustrating if your sole frame of reference is the CivII combat system.

CivII's combat system contained the single most ludicrous element ever introduced into any remotely-military game EVER - namely, the "single unit kills stack of 20 units by attacking one unit" factor.

This was the result simply of them not implementing a group attack function. Face it, if you stacked 20 units in defense, the only suitable attack would be with 20 combined units. That said, it was kinda lame...

Everyone is complaining about how they lost a city because the single tank they had defending it was killed by longbowmen. Good Lord, what led you to believe you could hold a city with a single unit?

A single unit of the 5th Panzer Division against some Iriquous arrow slingers!?! I would. Come on dude, a full strength panzer division does not fall to a bunch of spearchuckers...PERIOD.

Funny, I haven't heard of pikemen taking a city that was defended by two tanks and three infantry - with potential reserves nearby connected by road or rail. Maybe that city's defenders would take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the city. If two tanks and three infantry were attacked in the open, they might take casualties, but they wouldn't lose the position.

No one is complaining because you can't garrison a city with one unit. Look, if the Zulu nation descended on a lone tank unit in a city, sure, it could happen, but not without mass casualty. But to have a tank unit defeated by some god damned archers?!?! Do you people hear yourself when you defend that type of result?

Venger

[CyberGnu]

Ludwig, for the third time in this thread: I don't need better tactics.

But when I play a game called 'civilization' I expect some kind of historical accuracy.

If you want your knights to be able to defeat tanks in single combat, you should be playing Star Wars.

[Monoriu]

Why are people arguing whether civ 3 is realistic or not? In real world we operate by the physical rules of the real world, in civ 3 we operate by the rules set by Firaxis. Civ 3 is not a tactical war game, its not a simulation, it does not attempt create virtual reality. Its a game, designed to provide entertainment.

Combat is not broken. Its broken if there is no way to win, if bad strategy and good strategy doesn't make a difference, or there are no consistent rules. This isn't the case here.

I'll have to be blunt here. Its a bad idea to fortify cavalry in a city. Its a bad idea to defend a city with anything fewer than 2 defensive units (infantry, riflemen, musketmen, etc). Its a bad idea to send several units into enemy territory and expect to win just because they are technologically superior.

What I would have done in the original poster's situation to capture and hold the Aztec rubber city:

Before start of war:
Garrison each and every single city, choke point, important strategic resource with 2 defensive units each.
Station some defensive units at the borders on good defensive terrain. Build forts if necessary.
Make sure production is up and running and can produce lots of reinforcements at short notice.
Build an invasion force of at least 20 units. 10 should be riflemen, 5 artillery/cannon and 5 cavalry.

Conducting the offensive:
Position invasion force as single stack, and move toward target as one stack. Use bombardment to weaken enemy units in the field, and cavalry units to finish them. After winning the battles, cavalry units should withdraw back to the single stack, protected by riflemen. At the end of each turn, your invasion army should remain a single stack.

Approach enemy city, preferably the invasion force should sit on a tile with good terrain.

Bombard city, reduce population to below 6.

Attack city with 5-6 riflemen and 2-3 cavalry, and capture it. These units should all attack within a single turn so the city defenders have no chance to heal. Advance 2-3 full strength riflemen into the city, and leave at least 2 full strength riflemen back to protect the artillery and wounded units. That's why you need 10 riflemen at the start.

Never attack or defend with wounded units. Wounded units should be protected and should withdraw and heal.

I have done the above countless times, often against multiple infantry (6-10-1) garrisoned cities. It works most of the time.

Combat is NOT broken. It is much better than civ 2 in fact. If you have a good strategy and is well prepared, you'll win.

[Ludwig]

"No one is complaining because you can't garrison a city with one unit. Look, if the Zulu nation descended on a lone tank unit in a city, sure, it could happen, but not without mass casualty. But to have a tank unit defeated by some god damned archers?!?! Do you people hear yourself when you defend that type of result?"

Actually, that's exactly what you're complaining about. [Cybergnu just specifically did, by the way.]

The only way to implement a combat system where a very large number of technologically inferior troops can defeat a single modern unit is to give each inferior unit a small chance to inflict damage. Once that small unit is given that chance, it is possible for that small unit to win even when alone.

If you embarked on a campaign of tanks against archers with a total of 20 tank units, and you lost one of them, that would reflect an entirely appropriate casualty rate for the campaign. There would be nothing absurd or historically inaccurate about it. The problem is that sometimes the one tank you lose is in a place or situation where it really, really pisses you off. Particularly if it's all alone. OR, if you're the sort of player who doesn't notice the 19 tanks that live, and doesn't say to themselves, "Wow, 95% of my army got through that campaign intact! My general deserves a fifth star!"

The one tank you lose wouldn't make you so angry if it was supported by other tanks. Then you wouldn't lose a city, you wouldn't lose your position. You'd just have participated in a simulation where you [gasp!] suffered casualties during a successful military campaign.

And for Cybergnu:

"Ludwig, for the third time in this thread: I don't need better tactics.

But when I play a game called 'civilization' I expect some kind of historical accuracy.

If you want your knights to be able to defeat tanks in single combat, you should be playing Star Wars."

Tactics is entirely what it's about.

That's why you keep hearing it.

It keeps coming up because it's what makes you wrong. Since you keep repeating your point in the face of objections based on tactics, people assume you haven't understood, so they keep reiterating the point.

When an army goes on the offensive, some members of that army die. Period. Some of them die in battle. Some die of disease. Some shoot themselves in the foot or desert so they can go see their mommies. Some machines break down. Some machines drive into each other. Some soldiers are killed by partisans. Some die of heart attacks in whorehouses. And SOME are killed by grossly inferior opponents. The point of mutual unit support is to see to it that suffering marginal casualties doesn't effect the aggregate outcome.

If your units were in stacks, the issue would be moot. You wouldn't lose a BATTLE to an inferior opponent. You'd win the battles, and sometimes you'd have no casualties, sometimes you'd have minor casualties, and sometimes you'd suffer enough to necessitate a change in your order of battle. But you'd always WIN the battle in the aggregate. What's historically inaccurate about that?

I know you seem determined to want to use your units in "single combat", but that's precisely how small losses turn into gigantic strategic headaches. Again, there is nothing unrealistic about this at all. Technologically superior units poorly led, unsupported by friendly units, or called upon to do more than they are capable of will attrit at a high rate. Those are the breaks. If you throw your attack units out there one at a time, you might get some good results, but you'll get some disasters too. It happens. Ask General Paulus.

[Ludwig]

Actually, I was kind of mean and snippy in my last post, so I'll back up a bit and say one other thing:

My observations on the combat system are based on huge maps. I have no desire to play on anything but a huge map.

Huge maps means lots of cities. Lots of cities means lots of units.

It's easier to see the logic of the stack combat system when you have the luxury of employing multiple stacks of ten units.

Those of you who enjoy playing the game on a smaller map, with fewer cities and fewer units, may have more occasion to complain - as you do in the corruption debate.