Suspicious Combat Results

[Badtz Maru]

I'd like to believe that the AI gets no advantage in combat, but I witnessed something very suspicious in a recent game.

I was playing on Warlord and attacking an Aztec city. He had riflemen in it, I was attacking with cavalry and cannon. I spent several turns softening them up with the 8 cannon I had there, and then started sending in the cavalry. I expect to lose more than win in this situation, but I was making progress. Every cavalry unit I sent in knocked one or two notches off of a defending unit before being forced to retreat. I had a lot of cavalry, and in a couple of turns I was down to their last defender. When it got to that last rifleman, I could NOT do any damage to it - I sent six veteran and elite cavalry against it without taking it down a single notch. Then the enemy moved reinforcements in and I was again able to damage their units, but by this time my army was worn down and I had to call off the attack.

This may not be an AI advantage, because I have seen this happen with my defending units sometimes - the last defender sometimes seems to be much tougher than the ones before it, even if it's an inferior defender! This doesn't happen always, but frequently. If I get this 'Super Last Defender' advantage myself, as it seems, it shouldn't be a problem - but I'd like this phenomenon documented if it's something both me and the AI have access to.

[GNGSpam]

I think on Regent the combat is fairly equal.

Ive seen ridiculous outcomes where I should have won and lost. There have even been stretches where ive lost many battles I should have won.

But lately ive tried paying more attention to battles I should have lost but won. It still feels like im getting the short end of the stick, but since ive been trying to pay equal attention I dont feel that much at a disadvantage anymore.

I think its just that when you lose when you should win it sticks out more in your mind.

[Badtz Maru]

Supposedly difficulty level has absolutely nothing to do with combat - it only effects production, research, and happiness.

One possible explanation I've come up with is that the defense bonuses for a city are somehow divided between the defenders, so that one unit in a city gets more of a bonus than a bunch - this would make some sense, as it would be harder to hit a hundred soldiers hidden in a city than a thousand. But this is not supported by what we know of the rules, which says the bonus is a flat bonus given to all defenders.

It certainly seems to me that sometimes a defending unit becomes almost unbeatable under certain conditions. I have a good understanding of randomness, and a lot of combat results other people on these boards claim as unfair seem reasonable to me when you understand probabilities - but this really stood out to me - what are the odds that cavalry attacking a rifleman unit in a size-5 city would get 0 successful attack rolls in over 18 attacks (each of the 6 was at least a veteran, which means it would take 3 hits before withdrawing)?

[Grim Legacy]

This same thing happened in Civ2. The last nut is always the toughest to crack.

So far, the most annoying battles I've fought were:

- two veteran cavalry attacking a size2 city, defended by a regular spearman and losing.

- 4 veteran battleships (4/4, 2*3/4, 2/4) attacking a single enemy veteran battleship (3/4 after being bombarded by my fifth 4/4 battleship) and not being able to knock a single HP off... yes all my 4 battleships were sunk.