What people mean about firepower...

[Venger]

Originally posted by Barbotte
"Firepower added needless complexity to the game. For example, there is no significant difference between a unit with an offence of 10 and a firepower of 2 and a unit with an offense of 20 and firepower of 1..."

I must agree with Soren on this one. I think firepower/hitpoints was a bad design because it wasnt reflected in the units. Why did musketers have 2 hitpoints and 1 firepower?

Hit points and firepower are two sides of the same coin. The each have nearly the same result on combat percentages.

Why did tanks have the same firepower than warriors? And another side effect was that howitzer almost had the defense of a tank (def 2 * firpower 2 vs def 5 * firepower 1)

Combat results indicated it was pretty fair. Also, terrain modifiers for defense meant that difference was much bigger than you think. A fortified tank presented a defense of 7.5 versus 3. 1 was too low for it. One could argue for a higher defense for armor, maybe to 6, and a reduction of howitzer HP to 2, but the unit, as it played out, actually worked pretty decently. Artillery was easy to kill once you found it, even with mechanized infantry.

I actually like the way artillery is handled in Civ3, except for the inability to destroy units (come on...).

A better solution would have been to change the att/def of the units (ex: 6/6 for the musketeers). Simple and elegant.

That will work but now you've made the musketeer the same strength of cavalry. Better change that. Then you'll have to change infantry. And armor. And mechanized infantry...

You see where this is going...

Venger

[Venger]

Originally posted by Setsuna
Excellent post, Venger. You should direct this to Soren Johnson, who seems to think the CivIII way is better.

"Firepower added needless complexity to the game. For example, there is no significant difference between a unit with an offence of 10 and a firepower of 2 and a unit with an offense of 20 and firepower of 1..."

What an asinine statement! No wonder Civ3 combat is so screwed up.

If there is no difference, then a unit with firepower 10 and attack of one is the same as a unit with an attack of 1 and a firepower of 10.

What would happen if a 1/10FP unit fought a 10/1FP unit?

You'd end up with two scenarios:

A totally dead 10/1 unit and damaged 1/10 unit.
A toally dead 1/10 unit and an undamaged 10/1 unit.

That's stupid. The 10/1 unit either is destroyed or get's no damage. That's why extreme firepower was never used, and only the Cruise Missile had a firepower of 3. Ever wonder why it seemed a cruise missile attack on a battleship usualy gave a battleship a ton of damage or no damage? That's why - a high firepower low HP unit.

Bah!

Bah indeed, did anyone on that team actually PLAY Civ2, much less any other historical strategy game?

Venger

[Easy Rhino]

I wasn't a big fan of having the firepower concept because I DID find it overly complicated and under-utilized (except for cruise missiles, I guess).

It sounds like the main gripe is about "excessive variability" of combat results. I think that could be fixed by just inreasing hit points by a factor of 10 or so across the board.

So, solution = more HP, not HP + FP

However, to a certain extent, I like the variability (despite saying WTF? and scratching my head at certain repeated results). In a recent multi-party war, there was this one elite Aztec Cavalry running around that simply could not be brought down by the AI foces attacking it. It was fighting off attacks by other cavalry units while it only had one hp!

So, in conclusion, **** happen.


ER

[Venger]

Originally posted by Easy Rhino
It sounds like the main gripe is about "excessive variability" of combat results. I think that could be fixed by just inreasing hit points by a factor of 10 or so across the board.

So, solution = more HP, not HP + FP

This indeed does this - anything to remove the outliers...

Venger

[Rusty Nail]

I believe Soren's above comment on the equivalence of doubling the firepower and doubling the hit points is incorrect. A firepower of two means that a hit does twice the damage, so a defender who originally had two HP has the equivalent of one hit point if the attacker doubles his firepower.
Example: A=6, D=4; prob. round win to A is=0.6. Suppose both have 2 HP and firepower of 1.

Case 1:Prob. A wins = =.36 (in 2 rounds) +0.288 (in 3 rounds) =0.648

Case 2: Double A's firepower to 2. This is equivalent to reducing D's hit points to 1.

Prob A wins: 0.6 (1 round) + 0.24 (two rounds) =0.84

Case 3: Double A's hit points relative to Case 1, i.e. to 4HP (Soren's claim).

Prob A wins: 0.36 (in 2 rounds) + 0.288 (in 3 rounds) + 0.173 (in 4 rounds) + 0.092 (in 5 rounds) = 0.913.

Doubling hit points would seem to be a much stronger change than doubling firepower. Conclusion: The civ2 model is far more flexible, and is not replicable in civ3.

[Venger]

Originally posted by Rusty Nail
I believe Soren's above comment on the equivalence of doubling the firepower and doubling the hit points is incorrect. A firepower of two means that a hit does twice the damage, so a defender who originally had two HP has the equivalent of one hit point if the attacker doubles his firepower.
Example: A=6, D=4; prob. round win to A is=0.6. Suppose both have 2 HP and firepower of 1.

Case 1:Prob. A wins = =.36 (in 2 rounds) +0.288 (in 3 rounds) =0.648

Case 2: Double A's firepower to 2. This is equivalent to reducing D's hit points to 1.

Prob A wins: 0.6 (1 round) + 0.24 (two rounds) =0.84

Case 3: Double A's hit points relative to Case 1, i.e. to 4HP (Soren's claim).

Prob A wins: 0.36 (in 2 rounds) + 0.288 (in 3 rounds) + 0.173 (in 4 rounds) + 0.092 (in 5 rounds) = 0.913.

Doubling hit points would seem to be a much stronger change than doubling firepower. Conclusion: The civ2 model is far more flexible, and is not replicable in civ3.

This is of course correct. It's a close correlation, but it is indeed different, and it can be seen best at it's limits. What the hit points does is increase the sample size and push the standard deviation in, and the confidence interval out (my college stats are starting to come back to me, aiyee!!!). Your conclusion is right on the money - the Civ2 system, at least of its combat resolution core, is far more flexible. That said, alot of Civ3 (bomabardment, etc.) is better than Civ2s...

Venger

[jemwhiskars]

I'd like to thank all in this subject I won't be buying Civ III now until all the above is fixed. I expected Civ III to be like Civ II, but with crucially improved bits (diplomacy, borders, improved the tiresome trading). But from what has been said here, they have improved what they said they would, and broken some bits

[Simpleton]

It's too bad they tinkered with the system in Civ2. It was very well thought out and worked great. I wonder why Firaxis did that?
Question: When a comprehensive unit editor comes out wouldn't it be possible to just give the advanced units more hitpoints? If a tank has 5 now just give it 8 and leave the warrior at 1. This, in theory, could rectify the problem somewhat.

[Setsuna]

Originally posted by Simpleton
It's too bad they tinkered with the system in Civ2. It was very well thought out and worked great. I wonder why Firaxis did that?

Well, Soren did follow that previously quoted statement with..

"having said that, the later age units in Civ3 ARE less powerful than they are in Civ2. This was a design decision based on the resource system. We didn't want the game to be totally hopeless if you were unable to build the newest type of unit because you don't have resource X"

But likewise, this too makes no sense. Let's fix one problem by making another one!

[Gaius Marius]

Originally posted by jemwhiskars
I'd like to thank all in this subject I won't be buying Civ III now until all the above is fixed. I expected Civ III to be like Civ II, but with crucially improved bits (diplomacy, borders, improved the tiresome trading). But from what has been said here, they have improved what they said they would, and broken some bits

Suit yourself, but that's a pretty tough burden to put on a game you haven't played. I think you'd enjoy it, if maybe not as much as if the combat system fit your exact expectations. An earlier poster made the good point that, despite the problems (which are, by the way, very well described and thought through in this thread), the strategic level of the combat system does have vast improvements over civ2. In general, the units are more balanced, the CSUs are generally effective without unbalancing the game, combined arms is necessary, and various tactics are viable, as opposed to civ2, where certain key units were the only offensive and defensive options, and you just built as many of those as you could.

Anyway...

This is of course correct. It's a close correlation, but it is indeed different, and it can be seen best at it's limits. What the hit points does is increase the sample size and push the standard deviation in, and the confidence interval out (my college stats are starting to come back to me, aiyee!!!). Your conclusion is right on the money - the Civ2 system, at least of its combat resolution core, is far more flexible. That said, alot of Civ3 (bomabardment, etc.) is better than Civ2s...

Venger

Well said. I don't really see how Soren came up with those numbers - embarrassing flub that didn't require all that much thought to figure out. It SOUNDS fishy (his original statement in the chat, that is), and it doesn't seem like he, or anyone else at Firaxis, for that matter, took a look at it. He wrote a great AI, but, like the rest of this game, greatness is marred by little gaffes that are magnified by the quality of the rest of the game. It's like finding a crayon drawing in the Lourve - it's just that much more disappointing because you know the game is about 7/8 perfect.

[Simpleton]

Originally posted by Setsuna


Well, Soren did follow that previously quoted statement with..

"having said that, the later age units in Civ3 ARE less powerful than they are in Civ2. This was a design decision based on the resource system. We didn't want the game to be totally hopeless if you were unable to build the newest type of unit because you don't have resource X"

But likewise, this too makes no sense. Let's fix one problem by making another one!

Yes, they seem to have gotten themselves caught now. In order for the resource system to work you need to cripple the combat system. I myself would probably prefer to have the combat system work well at the expense of getting crushed once in a while because I can't get oil or iron. It makes those resources that much more valuable. Besides, you could probably use the editor to increase resource availability in your games so getting important ones is not as difficult.

[uXs]

So, you all dislike the extreme results ? Why not do away with this weird "chance" thingie then, and just impose fixed results ? Because no matter what you do, if you keep chance in, at some point some horribly weak unit will destroy some horribly powerful one.

So, why not do away with chance alltogether ? Yes, that will make it fun... NOT.

uXs

[Venger]

Originally posted by uXs
So, you all dislike the extreme results ? Why not do away with this weird "chance" thingie then, and just impose fixed results ?

Because I want an element of chance. But chance as in "reasonable, it could happen", not chance as in "lotto".

Because no matter what you do, if you keep chance in, at some point some horribly weak unit will destroy some horribly powerful one.

This has been demonstrated to be incorrect. Why do you want to argue it?

So, why not do away with chance alltogether ?

Made up argument. How about chances that make sense and keep the game balanced and realistic? You guys are big on gameplay balance where any unit can beat any unit, rather than gameplay balance that rewards players who manage resources and their civ well to get advance.

Venger

[Terser]

I believe--despite my own consternation--that there are many people who honestly do enjoy the current combat system. Good for them.

What I will never understand, however, is why Firaxis did not give CivIII players a choice(like that in CivII) between the simplified combat system(a la CivI or the current one in CivIII) and one incorporating FP/HP. For that matter, why didn't the designers attempt to create a new, groundbreaking battle system that might revolutionize the combat portion of TBS games? We have new innovations in diplomacy(extensive trade, mutual defense pacts), resources(strategic, luxury) and multiple paths to victory coupled with what is essentially a combat system from the early 1990's. It's bizarre to say the least.

Over my many hours of play I've pondered the reasoning behind this. The only thing I've come up with: was there some kind of legal restriction that prevented Firaxis from using something like the CivII combat system? This seems doubtful, as CivIII has the name, the wonders, the city improvements, and a host of other concepts in common with part 2. Still, it's the only halfway plausible explanation I could come up with.

Finally, my prediction: the future xpack with multiplayer will have a different combat system. When the average player repeatedly loses battleships and Aegis Cruisers to Ironclads when playing the computer they are, at least, annoyed if not angered. Once multiplay starts these incidents will become positively infuriating, because they will come at the hands of a living breathing person who should not receive any kind of compensation for having fallen behind in the tech race. There is also the issue of rushing to bring up(a familiar concept to players of AoE). Basically, you launch an early attack with swarms of ancient units--kind of like the AI in CivIII usually does now. This might or might not be considered a "legitimate" tactic in the early portion of multiplayer CivIII. However, imagine it being done in mid to late game, with a player simply amassing hordes of antiquated units which, because of the combat system, are able to vanquish a modern army only slightly smaller in size. It won't be pretty--and it won't happen quietly.

Change will come. It may just take a while... and they may expect us to pay for it...

[Easy Rhino]

I like it, dammit...

While I implied this in an earlier post, I wanna go on record that I like the fundamental structure of Civ3's combat system.

My gripes tend to relate to the things that tack onto the system, like planes (which I haven't gotten yet), bombardment (which I'm unsure of), and zones of control (which don't seem to work as advertised).

But there's nothing wrong with an A/D/HP system.

One think I like about it is that it's possible (or, more possible) for a swarm of weaker attackers to bring down a tough defender. As my poor lone infantry found out when he was attacked by a dozen swordsmen in one turn.

ER