Probability and Combat

[WhiteElephants]

Originally posted by Sevorak
WhiteElephants,

When referring to Civ2 hit points and firepower, the hit point stat is considered x10, since that's how it was in Civ2. The firepower stat is not. Therefore, Armor (10.5.3 3/1) had 30 hit points, and did 1 point of damage every time it won a combat round. A Howitzer (12.2.2 2/2) had 20 hit points and did 2 points of damage every time it won.

Agreed, but I thought Soren and Vengers comments were in reference to the mechanics of Civ3 and not Civ2. The biggest difference being that no units have over five hit points, therefore a difference of one firepower (this is what every unit in Civ3 has) and three firepower are significant and not to be overlooked.

Therefore, a 1/3 unit is not really any more disadvantaged than a 3/1 unit in combat. A few unlucky breaks could cause the 1/3 unit to perish prematurely, but even then, that's 5-10 lucky shots in a row (since it has 10 hp).

I think you contradicted yourself when you said that neither unit is at a disadvantage and then went on to say it would be unlucky ("5-10 lucky shots in a row") for the 1/3 unit to lose. So aren't you really saying the 1/3 unit is better and that there really is a difference? Aren't we somewhat in agreement here?

[Bubba_B]

OK Lets see if I'm getting this right:

Knight 4 att 4 hp happens across my 3 def 4 hp Cav on patrol and attacks.

Each attack represents 1 hp and the Knight has a 57% chance (4 out of 7) of winning each battle for 1 hp.
Assuming hp are equal he wins 57% of the time period. If his hp are higher the % goes higher to his favor or visa versa.

It just seems a no-brainer that more advaced units should have a higher hp.

Heck a low hp Cav attacking a high hp Knight is kind of screwed too.

[TCO]

Originally posted by Bubba_B


OK probably should have left off the part about the calvary beating my Tank. It took away from the focus of the post, which is this........
Should a (Insert primative unit here) have a more than 50% chance of beating a (Insert more advanced unit here) on a regular basis.

Heck, looking through the chart a Knight has a 3 def to a Calvary's 2 def?!?!

Units that have a 50% chance or better of beating a unfortified calvary:

Air Force,

Use the cavalry for offense, not defense. Even in Civ2, a legion could defeat a cavalry. LEARN TO CONDUCT OFFENSIVE WARFARE.

[Bubba_B]

Whoa Hoss.....

Served 6 years in my beloved Corp (Marines) before going to the AF Reserves, so take a deep breath.......Its cool.

Without turning this into a flamer on realism let me say Cav has been a very powerful defensive force in alot of battles, Gettsyburg, and 2nd Bull Run come to mind (Gen. Buford is one of my favorites) Hell, Cav is nothing but mounted Infantry, and Knight are mounted shooting galleries for my Cav.

So go pick on n.c. some more he deserves it......

Semper Fi

[2H Pencil]

Attacker's chance of winning

I've done some calculations on the probability of the attack winning, which hopefully will be helpful.

These calculations are done for one on one, open terrain (no bonuses), full health combat

This is how i calculated the prbability

Chance of winning = P(Full HP) + P(Full HP - 1) + ... +P(one HP)

where
P(Full HP) = p^defender hp
P(Full HP - 1) = no. of ways of losing one hp x p^defender hp x (1 - p)^1
etc

heres a sample for A1 vs D1
Columns (Attack) Rows (Defence)
HP-------3----------4-----------5
3-------0.50-------0.66-------0.77
4-------0.34-------0.50-------0.64
5-------0.23-------0.36-------0.50


please commented on the method of calculation, is there anything that was over looked / wrong with the calc?

[Frank Johnson]

From what I can see, the combat system is definately downgraded, except for artillery and air unit changes which I like, the rest is....junk.

Just to restate the obvious...

Quantity is vastly more important than quantity, when you consider the close level you are usually on with your opponents.

In civ2....there were pretty consistant changes in defender and attacker advantages. What I mean is, a civilization would be just as likely to be wiped out early as it might be wiped out by crusaders later, or cavalry, or tanks, or finally howitizers. Each of these units reigned in a new era where the threats became real once more. The tech tree dictated patterns of warfare.

On the otherhand, the way I see it, the futher you GROW (not advance in tech) the harder it is for you to be wiped out. All civs can usually make it to the point where they are making spearmen and barracks...if their production is near or on par with yours...and they can make some elementry preparations for your attack, the likelyhood of your chance of getting very far with swordsmen is low, knights are better, but that goes away with fuedalism and pikemen.

What really is the problem is this, there is a drastic increase in cost of newer gunpowder units and their power yeilds are relatively low, making medieval units BETTER than gunpowder units in most situations involving a hot war with many deaths occuring. Let me explain...

Someone achiveing fuedalism will see their defense increase 50% for the same increase in production costs (spearmen to pikemen). Someone achieveing gunpowder will see their defense increase 33% for a 100% increase in cost (pikes to musketmen)

For attack units.....
Horsemen will give you 2 attack for 30 sheilds. Get chivalry and knights will give you 100% more attack power for 133% more production, plus a nice defense of 3.
Military Tradition, a difficult to obtain late middle age tech, will give you a 33% attack increase, and 1 movement point for a 17% increase in cost. Most of the complaints are about cavalry and you can see why, they are little more than glorified knights, not worthy of the lengthy research required to produce them. And guess what they are the best thing you have going for you, as far as independant attack units......untill either tanks or marines....far far away and your opponent will get nationalism in between there vastly increasing their defense creating a dead zone of warfare where vast artillery barrages are the rule not the exception, and ANY attack without them will certainly fail with time.

Rather than turn the tide of battle your wasted research efforts may have been better placed in taxes for rush building more veteran knights and pikemen. Your new units will certainly won't help you hold any ground as pikemen ARE FAR SUPERIOR DEFENDERS from a production / efficency standpoint. You can build them 2:1 to musketmen, which more than makes up for small terrain bonus multipliers and run away and heal victories if you employ smart stacking tactics. The only other reason for building muskteers would be to save the 1 gold income cost it takes for maintaining 2 pikemen, to that I say #1 go monarchy and suck it up, the unit allowances are quite generous, #2 if your butt is on the line suck it up and raise your taxes for awhile, if you win you'll more than make up the research later, #3 if you are in really hot war units will be dying left and right and if you start experiencing negative income due to unit over production, your enemy probably is hurting pretty bad and really wouldn't mind having that problem instead!


So in conclusion........
REAL ADVANCES = Chivalry, Fuedalism, Metalurgy, Nationalism, Motorized Transportation, Flight.
FAKE ADVANCE = Gunpowder, Military tradition

One last thing. I still think there is something that I am not getting here and it involves the comparison in how well units defend agaist artillery attacks, that may or may not be equivilent to the unit's listed defensive ability. The justification for musketmen over pikeman may be a vastly superior ability to endure catapult and cannon attacks that does not correspond to the 3 to 4 ratio that is listed as their defensive ability. However since there is no editor and this situation is hard to prove.....I can't realyl tell yoy now can I?

[TCO]

Re: Attacker's chance of winning

Originally posted by 2H Pencil
I've done some calculations on the probability of the attack winning, which hopefully will be helpful.


please commented on the method of calculation, is there anything that was over looked / wrong with the calc?

Look at the combat calculations in the Info: Combat thread on Civ2 Strategy. They worked out the math for Civ3. Should give you a good clue if yours is right.

[Bakunine]

Re: Attacker's chance of winning

Originally posted by 2H Pencil

please commented on the method of calculation, is there anything that was over looked / wrong with the calc?

Seems everything right to me. Good job.

[TCO]

Re: Whoa Hoss.....

Originally posted by Bubba_B
Served 6 years in my beloved Corp (Marines) before going to the AF Reserves, so take a deep breath.......Its cool.

Without turning this into a flamer on realism let me say Cav has been a very powerful defensive force in alot of battles, Gettsyburg, and 2nd Bull Run come to mind (Gen. Buford is one of my favorites) Hell, Cav is nothing but mounted Infantry, and Knight are mounted shooting galleries for my Cav.

So go pick on n.c. some more he deserves it......

Semper Fi

Good strategy...redirect the barbarians at your neighbor...

*GP goes off looking for fresh meat.*

[barefootbadass]

Ever think of making armies to have more hp's? You should be able to do this by modern times and be able to attack with several at once then in addition to having major artillery support. And even without armies, use mobile units to attack and have them protected by good defensive units after their attack.

The combat system in this game is far superior to that in civ2, and good enough definitely to make an enjoyable game. Those complaining about realism should remember that in civ2 you could leave a bomber over a unit for a turn to make that unit invulnerable to any attacks.