Technological Superiority Doesn't Matter in War

[CyberGnu]

Monoriu: Yeah, all true, good strategy and everything. And utterly irrelevant.

What we're discussing is whether a frigate should be able to sink a battleship. Or if a knight should have more than a snowballs chance in hell of taking out a tank. And the answer is 'No'. In a game called civilization, it is uneqivocally so.

[CyberGnu]

Ludwig, I think you still don't understand. I don't need advise on tactics. The reason is I already figured it out, and have used it against the AI's to good effect.

But regardless if the combat flaws help me or hinder me, they are still flaws.

[Enigma]

The combat system occaisionally really pisses me off, so I reload the turn =]

But 95% of the time it is fine, I occaisionally lose my elite immortals when fighting regular spearmen, that is why I bring a lot of immortals.

But here is what I think all of you guys have been missing: you have been analyzing WEAPONS out of the context of EMPIRES

What makes an empire great is usually not its weapons, it is its organization.

The Romans didn't really have revolutionary weapons, their tactics were good but they lost sometimes too... what made them unique was their organization.

Now you never see an example of people with swords killing soldiers armed with rifles because of the way *empires* exist, they do not exist in isolation, the technology would eventually be traded.

But lets say that a well trained, well organized force led by intelligent officers encounters a higher technology force, neither is used to each other.

The Roman Legionaires versus some riflemen. The legionnares would be organized enough that their commanders would be able to analyze the situation and tell them how to group together/not group together, and then they would be fairly effective.

The riflemen are not used to seeing knights wearing armor attacking them, they fire but they are spooked and lose in melee combat.

Surely you wouldn't have a problem with this sort of thing happening 10% of the time or so?

We assume that the spearmen in those mountains are much better trained than the barbarians. The barbarians are considered conscripts, and your units can go as high as elite, big difference there. But the few times that a unit that is vastly outpowered wins then that is why it is promoted- we assume that the leaders of that unit showed remarkable ingenuity and killed the enemy.

We don't see Zulu's etc conquering the British in one on one combat because the Zulus not only lack in firepower but in organization/training. I honestly think that if the Roman empire at the height of its power were plopped right next to a country the size of France in the 1600's the Romans would win, they would figure out how to conquer the firearms, and/or adopt them themselves.

Elephants, the reason that kings started using musketeers instead of knights was not based on the resources required to make a fighter, or their effectiveness, but instead it was based on the skill of the fighters and their class. Knights were an elite class, they required a lot of training, and healthy lifestyles in order to be strong enough to use their weaponry and armor. The first musketmen were basically peasants, non proffesionals. Kings had money but they did not like having to rely on knights to fight for them, so they recruited the peasants as musketmen. As far as resources I think firearms win, it requires more technology but overall less resources than a suit of armor, and again a much less trained, less intelligent, weaker individual.

[TCO]

Originally posted by VetteroX

BTW, someone said in Civ 2 Knights had an attack of 6, and riflemen were 4. Actuall knights were 4/2/2 1/1 and riflemen were 5/4/1 2/1. They had 2 health, which means compaired to a knight they are like 6 defence. I personally never saw a knight beat a healthy riflemen in any of my 200 or so games of Civ 2.

Pay a little more attention to the details. I said a vet knight has an attack of 6 (4 plus 50%, understood) and that the rifleman has a defense of 4. (which it does) That's what I said, big guy.

If you are talking regular knight vs regular rifleman (or if there are any defender status or terrain bonusses) you ar unlikely to have the knight beat the rifleman. This is because in Civ2, any marginal advantage of one unit over another was hugely magnified. making the game fun only for people that are challenged by the AI. Most deity vets were not and did not like the way a human player could steamroller the AI like a metronome.

And by the way I was talking about your skill level at civ2. Most players around here conquerred deity about 4 years ago and are not challenged by the AI. And we don't whine about losing a unit now and then.

[CyberGnu]

Enigma, I think this is reflected in the game, in some sense. the developemnt of archers requires not 'bow' or 'ballistics' but 'warrior code', right? There are also mobile warfare, marine warfare etc.

Furthermore, a lot of the Roman success can be attributed to technology. The Pilum, the superior armor, the use of the shortsword, the use of field fortifications, siege warcraft...

Not to mention the first encounter with Naval warfare, when the Romans realized they were completely behind... And went on a crash course in naval design based on an old shipwreck. (IIRC, they had soldiers sitting on the beach practicing rowing while the ships were being built). All showing how important technology can be in the fight...

[CyberGnu]

GP, the whining isn't about losing a unit now and then. It's about consistently losing battles (or winning, for that matter... Although it tends to happen less often, as the 'intuition' tells us that attacking a fortified spearman with a horseman should be suicide.) that doesn't make historical sense.

Sure, the zulus won that one single fight. and the Souix (?) won the battle of Little Big Horn. But those were pretty much the only fights they won... And if that is the frequency which odd results pop up, fine. (That is pretty much the Civ2 ratio, I believe.)

But if the zulus had won every third fight against the brits, there would not be a nation called South Africa today...

[Blackadar1]

To me, there's a simple solution to this problem. While Calvary may have a shot of beating a tank, warriors (guys with sticks and stones) should have no chance of beating one. None. Zero. Under NO conditions can you make me believe that someone with a stick can beat a tank. But for gameplay options, you just can't eliminate the ability for Calvary to stand a decent chance against a tank because of the resource distribution. If units of a later age were practically invincible against units of an earlier one, then the game would be decided upon the tech race alone.

Here's my suggestion - sorry if it's already been thrown out there, but I'm not reading through all the threads to find out. When units of different eras are fighting, the unit from the later "age" gets a bonus depending on the differential of the ages. There are 4 ages - Ancient, Middle, Industrial and Modern. Therefore there can be a maximum difference of 3 ages - Ancient versus Modern.

How about this?

1 age difference: 10% bonus
2 age differences: 40% bonus
3 age differences: 100% bonus

The bonus isn't 10% to an attack or defense rating. It's a 10% chance that a negative result to the more modern unit will be re-rolled. This is a crucial distinction and it'd work like this.

Swordsman (ancient unit, attack rating of 3) attacks Knight (medival unit, defense rating of 3). For the sake of this discusson, there are no terrain modifiers. On any attack from the swordsman to the knight, if the swordsman was successful, there would be only a 10% chance that this result would be re-rolled. If the roll is still successful, there again is a 10% chance of another re-roll.

Doesn't sound like much of a difference, eh? It's not supposed to when comparing units that are close in eras.

Let's take that same swordsman and put him up against modern armor. Well, now the 100% modifier kicks in. So ANY successful attack would automatically be overturned. Overturned again and again, if necessary, until the tank just wiped out the swordsman.

It's a simple solution to this problem, IMHO. It just adds another check to the combat system based on the eras of the units. Don't like my percentages? Change 'em.

Just a thought.

[orc4hire]

Originally posted by Enigma
But lets say that a well trained, well organized force led by intelligent officers encounters a higher technology force, neither is used to each other.

The Roman Legionaires versus some riflemen. The legionnares would be organized enough that their commanders would be able to analyze the situation and tell them how to group together/not group together, and then they would be fairly effective.

Actually what happens is that the technologically inferior force is too busy dying all over the place to adapt its tactics... the way cultures adapt to a technologically superior opponent is by adopting the higher techology, not adapting their tactics; witness the way American Indians used rifles, not bows and arrows when they could, or the way the Sikhs adapted western drill and weapons.

Sorry, but that's just the way it works. Technologically inferior military forces don't adapt their tactics to allow for their inferiority, they get their hands on the better weapons.

[Karhgath]

This is just pointless. Really, no one here(except a few) has any argumentative skills. You take only the parts that you can(or, more accurately, think you can) reply to and ignore the rest. There were a couple of good posts and good parts of posts that either side just ignored. Really pointless. Those saying it's broken don't want to really know if it is or not, they just want to state it, period. Those who think it's not, just want the others to accept what they are saying without a second thought.

Pointless once again. (apologies to those few good posters)

And, also, just to answer one question "could a frigate kill a battleship", well, just look at the USS Cole. Take that frigate and use it to ram the battleship, or fill it with explosive, and there you go, easy =)

How could technology not win against lower tech? Well, look what they did with those nice planes on NY, and the fact that the US still hasn't had any real victory yet in afghanistan. Tech means nothing if you are bright enough to use what is available at its fullest.(Not that I condone any of those example above, just facts here)

Not that it has any impact on Civ3(it's a game), but yes, a frigate could(if they REALLY REALLY want) destroy a battleship.

Those saying they expected a more historically accurate game because it's called Civilization, well, wake up, it's the third iteration and nothing shows it has ever been any kind of historically accurate game, and never was close to be. It's a stupid game. They want it more like Civ2, but they want it to be accurate, realistic and historical. So, which want you really want, like Civ2, or realistic? Those 2 are pretty different you know.

And beside, those that think it's broken are those playing(and having tons of fun) civ2 at deity and 'cheating' by using all the flaws in Civ2 to win(and there are TONS of them). Using game flaws are some of the only way to win in Deity at Civ2, and I expect the same thing here. Those flaws are just different.

You know, people are just like that, they never know what they really want.

For me, I like it, some big and small flaws/bugs, but overall, I'm having a blast winning(and loosing) at Civ3, and it has been a pretty good game. If they could only fix the bugs soon and actually make a real scenario editor, I would be in heaven, hehe.

[Blackadar1]

The USS Cole is a destroyer and it wasn't blown up, even with a sneak attack. Plus, the frigate would have needed the advance of explosives.

[Karhgath]

warriors (guys with sticks and stones) should have no chance of beating one. None. Zero. Under NO conditions can you make me believe that someone with a stick can beat a tank.

Ok, here we go. Give me a crowbar(or baseball bat, or a staff, etc.), and take a tank, a nice little abraham! You can't have nothing beside the tank(and munition for the canon), and I can't have anything beside a crowbar(or whatever blunt weapons you give me). Now, try to kill me =)

Tanks are pretty useless against any kind of infantry(thats why they have those machinegunners on them, and must be escorted by infantry anyway). So, under certain circumstances, yes, it could happen, if they are alone in the open(even more so in difficult terrain)

Again, that doesn't prove anything about the Civ3 system, just that it can happen in real life. Don't think a battle is all about each side standing on a side of the battlefield and flinging rocks and shooting at each others. It depends on the tactics, so I'm pretty sure warriors wouldn't stand on the other side of the field and fling rocks at the tanks advancing if they actually won that battle, they did something clever.

Anyway... who cares by now?

[Monoriu]

I really don't see the problem of a 3-2-1 unit attacking a 6-3-3 unit and winning 50% of the time. In game terms, we happen to call it swordmen and cavalry, but their stats should tell you that its very possible to happen.

This is a game, not a simluation, I said so in my past post in this thread. So we adopt to the rules of the game, and my experience tells me that is very possible and easy to win combat in this game unless your strategy is bad.

Think about these situations:

1. You don't have oil, and nobody sells it. Does it mean the end of the game for you? If riflemen have a chance to defeat tanks, at least you have a chance.

2. You just got cavalry, and the AI is 8 turns behind you in tech. Does it mean you can produce 4 cavalry units, and these are invinciable until the AI catches up?


If you play the game, you gotta play within its rules, and I have shown that its very possible if you know what you are doing.

If you can accept that the government can always decide what tech to research, that pyramids somehow are related to granaries, that all the people do exactly what the government tells them to do, that you can predict exactly when you'll get a tech, then you'll also have to accept that a frigate can occastionally sink a battleship. This is civ 3, its a good design decision, and it can be overcome.

[Steve Clark]

Folks just want predictability, to know that they can win each and every time. With success against an AI not being a challenge, might as well not play. I mean, if you are going up against a far inferior civ, what's the point then?

Forget this cross-the-Ages stuff then, wait for the scenarios.

[Karhgath]

The USS Cole is a destroyer and it wasn't blown up, even with a sneak attack. Plus, the frigate would have needed the advance of explosives.

So what if it is a destroyer? Same thing(I know the diff between the different ship classes, but ofr the current example, it makes no difference). And, sure, it wasn't blown up, but in WW2, did they hacked the tank into tiny pieces until it is only dust, or just disabled them?

[Venger]

Rifles? We don't need no stinking rifles!

Originally posted by Blackadar1

How about this?

1 age difference: 10% bonus
2 age differences: 40% bonus
3 age differences: 100% bonus

Maybe a little too Draconian, I have recommended in another thread a +1 point bonus per age difference between the units. Hence, musketeers fighting warriors would receive +2 to whichever stat was needed, attack or defence.

Frankly, simply adding FIREPOWER and making the current system work properly does the same thing. In Civ2, musketeers were the first unit to get 2 firepower - and it gave the unit the expected combat advantages over previous units. It was far from perfect, but a fortified musketeer didn't lose to a freaking archer either...

Venger