Fire power is not what we need, we need modern units to have more hit points

[Nuke gay whales]

Originally posted by mmike87

Edit the rules until you are happy and then play the game. Civ3 is INSPIRED by history - it is NOT an episode of the History Channel.

Ummm... explain how to edit the rules so that air units can move more than 8 squares? Maybe you should look at the editing functions before you claim that there is an easy fix. This is the problem, the rules CAN'T be edited to fix the game the way it should be.

I agree that there are certain functions that you can change (like allowing Cruisers to carry missiles) but this is not the main issue... The air superiority function does not work, bombers and jet fighters cannot sink naval units, and spearmen can defeat tanks... exactly how would you "edit" these problems?

[karlmarx9001]

'(at the peak, there was 473 warriors).'

If you can afford build 473 warriors for an invasion, then you're going to win that invasion. That's 4730 production, with an upkeep cost of 473 gold a turn; by comparision, an equal amount of production could get you 47 tanks, at an upkeep cost of 47 gold.

I'd go with the 47 tanks and keep the extra 400-odd gold a turn; here's why. Assuming an 8 city empire producing nothing but warriors at a rate of one per city per turn, you spent 59 * (437/2) = 13,953 gold on upkeep for your warrior army in the process of producing them (I'm ignoring the small amount of support you get for free over that time period; it's 15% of your upkeep for this invasion force even under the best possible circumstances, with 8 size 13 cities under Communism). By comparision, the upkeep you'd spend while producing 47 tanks, *in the same amount of time*, would have been 1410 gold. For the 12,543 gold premium you dished out to have hordes of warriors instead of tanks, you could rush buy, at the full 4x cost, another 31 tanks.
In other words, you could invade, in the same year, with:

0 treasury, 473 warriors, 473 upkeep a turn.
0 treasury, 88 tanks, 88 upkeep a turn.

That's assuming you're forced to rush-buy your tanks in one turn for some reason. If you wait until the midway point on each tank before rush-buying it (there's no reason not to, it's free money), then the result becomes:

0 treasury, 473 warriors, 473 upkeep a turn.
0 treasury, 109 tanks, 109 upkeep a turn.

Which do you think is more likely to win? This doesn't count the smaller support force for an amphibious invasion, either. I can see an army of 473 warriors losing pretty easily; I mean, all the AI has to do is have a few artillery pieces. If you think your chance of winning an individual battle is bad with 473 4 hp warriors (I'm assuming veterans), then imagine it with 473 2 hp warriors (it's not like they're going to put up a fight against artillery bombardment with a 1 defense), and you're going to need to stack them pretty deep; most empires probably don't have 473 squares in them total.

In other words, you would have been more effective if you'd built higher technology units. The numbers match up about the same for cavalry or anything else you want to pick.

Summary: The combat system is just fine, and there's rarely, if ever, a reason to build obselete units. Go back to playing the game.

[mmike87]

I was addressing the subject of this thread, which was "More Hitpoints for Modern Units" primarily.

You're right - you can't edit everything, and air superiority is broekn. I plainly pointed out in my post that I admitted that there were things that needed to be tweaked and fixed, but that many of the items that people are complaining about can be fixed via the editor.

No one implied that a patch was not needed at all - only that people can, toa degree, help themselves if they so desire.

Some people would rather just whine about it.

[Barnacle Bill]

Again, given the overall scale of the game, a unit is a division, not a single example of the thing depicted or even a small group of the thing depicted. Even serious wargames in recent years have taken to using a graphic of a tank to represent a large armored formation, etc... because the old cardboard counter with NATO unit symbols look is scary to the mass audience.

Now, I do not doubt for a minute that primative tribesmen could ambush and destroy an armored column of up to battalion size, particularly a poorly equipped, poorly trained, poorly led and ill-motivated one (all of which charactorized the Italian army in that era). However, this is not going to be possible with an armored division and a similarly-sized army of tribesmen.

I do understand that a lot of things in the game are abstracted (yeh, I'd personally love a Civ-type game where the combat system was based on Norm Kroger's Operational Art of War series, but that's me). However, even an abstract system should produce credible results. 10,000 guys with pointy objects taking out a supplied armored division is not credible (and the Civ system is nowhere close to being able to model an out-of-gas&bullets armored division - every unit is assumed "in supply").

I do understand that the current combat system was created on purpose to work with the strategic resource system, as a matter of game balance. However, I believe that game balance can be achieved WITHOUT creating the potential for routine unbelievable combat results. There are a couple of ways that have been proposed, which are not in fact mutually exclusive:

1) In each era, a basic combat unit which requires no strategic resources and is only slightly inferior to the good stuff of its own era (while units of the previous era would be significantly inferior and units 2 eras or more back pretty hopeless)

2) For each unit requiring strategic resources, an identical no-resource version that just costs a whole lot more (3 times? whatever works).

BTW, I think there should be more eras (in combat, not necessarily the tech tree). What I would propose is roughly as follows:

A) Pre-gunpowder (neglecting very primative GP weapons which were fairly insignificant in impact). Weapons & armor improve incrementally through-out the period, but most revolutionary changes are in tactics rather than technology. Rowing & ramming is the state of the art at sea (except the "Byzantines" who have Greek Fire).
B) Early gunpowder - mixed infantry formations of guys with matchlocks & guys with pikes, cavalry in heavy armor with wheellocks. Cannon-armed galleys are still viable in coastal waters, but sailing ships dominate.
C) 18th Century/Napoleonic - flintlock smoothbores, cavalry loses the armor and also starts to get less important on the battlefield. Sailing ships reach their peak.
D) Mid-19th Century - percussion rifled muzzleloaders, cavalry mostly for scouting now but occasionally gets a lick in. The primacy of defense starts to make attacking a bloody affair requiring significant numerical superiority in order to acheive decisive results (US Civil War). Seas ruled by steam/sail hybrids that look much like ships of the previous era with smoke-stacks. Late in the period, Ironclads rule coastal waters (should have the same restrictions as galleys - read up on what happened to the USS Monitor).
E) Late-19th Century - breach-loading cartridge firearms, cavalry's in even more trouble, as are attackers in general (unless the other side is still at the previous tech level ala Franco-Prussian War). Ocean-going steel-hulled ships now rule the waves.
F) WWI-era - infantry now have repeating rifles and heavy machineguns are integrated at the company level, cavalry charges are now suicide. Infantry attacks against a fortified enemy are pretty close to it, although lots of artillery helps. Late in the period, clunky slow tanks appear and can break the deadlock (as can specially-trained infantry). Aircraft (on the Civ scale) are useless except for recon & air superiority missions. The age of the Dreadnought, with primative submarines threatening merchant shipping.
G) WWII-era - infantry now have light automatic weapons integrated at the squad level, and man-portable AT weapons. Tanks and aircraft come into their own - attacking armored formations now have an advantage. A nation which has lost air superiority is handicapped, but not crippled (especially on the defense). A more expensive version of infantry ("motorized infantry") would have the same combat stats as the others but same speed as the tank (still only 1 attack per turn, though). "Superdreadnoughts" bring surface combatants to their peak, but get knocked off their perch by carrier aircraft. Submarines are incrementally better but not revolutionary.
H) Atomic-age - Basic infantry now have "assault rifles" and improved man-portable AT weapons (wire-guided). Mechanized infantry Incremental improvement in tanks. Jet aircraft. Air superiority pretty much guarantees victory, except against dug-in infantry or guerrillas. Carriers get bigger, and their escorts pack SAM's. Nuclear submarines rule the waves, and using your own to "sanitize" an area first is the only way those expensive carrier battlegroups can operate safely.
I) Contemporary - high-tech electronics make everything markedly more effective (and expensive) than the previous era. Equipment of the two eras looks much the same, but for all its cost the new stuff delivers far more bang-per-buck to those who can afford it (Gulf War). Precision guided weapons make surrendering control of the air to your opponent suicide. Stealth lets you evade air defenses, but costs way too much to replace all your "regular" aircraft. High-tech non-nuke subs make a comeback, but low transit speed makes them mostly a coastal defense weapon - nukes still rule the deep water.

[karlmarx9001]

'I do understand that the current combat system was created on purpose to work with the strategic resource system, as a matter of game balance. However, I believe that game balance can be achieved WITHOUT creating the potential for routine unbelievable combat results. There are a couple of ways that have been proposed, which are not in fact mutually exclusive:

1) In each era, a basic combat unit which requires no strategic resources and is only slightly inferior to the good stuff of its own era (while units of the previous era would be significantly inferior and units 2 eras or more back pretty hopeless)

2) For each unit requiring strategic resources, an identical no-resource version that just costs a whole lot more (3 times? whatever works). '

2) isn't a bad idea, although it brings up the question of how you build nukes without radioactive material.

There's no way to fix this perceived lack of power on modern units without completely breaking game balance *and* making the results unbelievable at the strategic level. The results everyone appears to want, I think, are the game equivalent of Japan conquering China in WWII, who were technological inferior, with only a single tank division. Sheesh.

What's actually pissing some people off, I think, isn't that warrior wins some absurdly small percentage of the time against a tank; it's that counter-attacking cavalry can kill off their weakened tanks really easily (6 attack vs. 8 defense). That situation isn't implausible if you think of "tanks" as the 1939 German construct, of course; it's not like tanks are supposed to be excellent units for defense, either.

"Hey, they have old units, we should be able to conquer the country with 5 tanks!"

[karlmarx9001]

'I really am baffled why they changed such an obviously successful design. Of course combat is just the most glaring example of Civ III ignoring a SMAC improvement.

One factor which seems to have been neglected is the fact that units can only attack once per turn (AFAIK). This makes a "rushing" strategy like this viable.

Say you have a city producing 10 shields/turn. You can build 1 Tank in 10 turns or 10 Warriors, one per turn.

In the case where the Warriors attack the Tank, you have (potentially) 10 attacks/turn. Even though the chance of the Warrior winning is only 1/8, the number of attacks should outweight that and the Warriors stand a decent chance of beating the Tank in a turn or two (by sheer weight of numbers).

If the Tank attacks the Warriors then it needs 10 turns to clear them all (or at best 5 turns if you allow 1 attack per movement point).

This can't be right, is it?'

It's correct, but that's because you're treating the warriors like cruise missiles. That's another thing people have been leaving out of this: if you lose 200 production worth of warriors managing to take down one infantry (100 production), did you really "win?"

The unit living to fight another day, thereby saving you the production cost to replace it, is a variable no one is paying attention to.

[Barnacle Bill]

Originally posted by karlmarx9001

2) isn't a bad idea, although it brings up the question of how you build nukes without radioactive material.

There should be severe penalties for using nukes. In real life, nukes were used once under a very isolated set of circumstances. Nobody has used them since. In real life, they serve more to deter the other guy from using them than as an offensive weapon. This should be reflected in the game. It should also take a long time to build up enough of a stockpile to do anything with, as it did in real life. I'd make the Manhatten Project a small wonder, and you could only build nukes at that city. Plus, the amount of fisionable material required is rather small, so the #2 idea would represent obtaining it through covert means because you haven't got a uranium mine under your control.

Originally posted by karlmarx9001

There's no way to fix this perceived lack of power on modern units without completely breaking game balance *and* making the results unbelievable at the strategic level. The results everyone appears to want, I think, are the game equivalent of Japan conquering China in WWII, who were technological inferior, with only a single tank division. Sheesh.

China was not throwing guys with axes at Japan. In actual fact, the technological level of the two was not that far apart in terms of ground warfare. China was just poor. Japanese troops were better trained and more lavashly equipped, but on the equipment side it was more a matter quantity than quality. The Japanese deployed very few tanks (and the ones they did were about on par with Italian tanks). The situation would actually be modelled very well if you had the #1 situation (a cheap no-resource modern infantry), China had lots of cities with many people but no factories (few shields), Japan had fewer cities but factories in them and the resources to build regular infantry. So, China would draft lots of "militia" or whatever (but they wouldn't be guys with axes, they'd be guys with bolt-action rifles). Also, Japan did not defeat China. A strategic stalemate existed for most of the war, once Japan layed into the Western Powers. If the Japanes decide to lay into the stone age tribesmen in the interior of New Guinea - then it is guys with axes and the Japanes should polish them off without breaking a sweat (except for the infernal tropical heat, of course).

Originally posted by karlmarx9001

What's actually pissing some people off, I think, isn't that warrior wins some absurdly small percentage of the time against a tank; it's that counter-attacking cavalry can kill off their weakened tanks really easily (6 attack vs. 8 defense). That situation isn't implausible if you think of "tanks" as the 1939 German construct, of course; it's not like tanks are supposed to be excellent units for defense, either.

"Hey, they have old units, we should be able to conquer the country with 5 tanks!"

Again, it isn't "tanks" - it is an armored division. An early war German Armored division had 1 regiment of tanks, two of armored infantry, plus a bunch of artillery. A Panzergrenadier division reversed the proportion of tanks & infantry. OK, so let's say our Panzer Division has taken 75% casualties in a hard-fought offensive. You still have about a battalion's worth of tanks left and at least a couple companies of infantry, and lots of machineguns all over the place. They are now counterattacked by a division of Jeb Stuart's cavalry straight of the battlefield at Gettysburg - with single-shot muzzleloading carbines & sawed-off shotguns (the Confederate cavalryman's weapon of choice). What do you think happens to Jeb & the boys when they charge into all those MG34's?

5 Panzer Divisions SHOULD be able to defeat either side in the US civil war.

[karlmarx9001]

'Again, it isn't "tanks" - it is an armored division. An early war German Armored division had 1 regiment of tanks, two of armored infantry, plus a bunch of artillery. A Panzergrenadier division reversed the proportion of tanks & infantry. OK, so let's say our Panzer Division has taken 75% casualties in a hard-fought offensive. You still have about a battalion's worth of tanks left and at least a couple companies of infantry, and lots of machineguns all over the place. They are now counterattacked by a division of Jeb Stuart's cavalry straight of the battlefield at Gettysburg - with single-shot muzzleloading carbines & sawed-off shotguns (the Confederate cavalryman's weapon of choice). What do you think happens to Jeb & the boys when they charge into all those MG34's?

5 Panzer Divisions SHOULD be able to defeat either side in the US civil war.'

In a platonic ideal universe, yes, 5 panzer divisions could conquer an 1850s US. However, that's what the *random* bit is for. Maybe the German generals have the clap, or all their supplies rot, or the army comes down with smallpox, or.....you get the picture. Combat in Civ 3 isn't about modeling outcomes at the tactical level.

When a tank loses against a pikeman on a mountain, it's more accurate to think of it as a modern era attacking force being destroyed while attempting to root out savages from incredilby rough terrain. Doesn't sound as unlikely, does it?

As it is, the game is fun and well balanced. I have no idea what everyone is complaining about.

[Barnacle Bill]

No credible situation could result in even the entire Army of the Potomic/Army of Northern Virginia taking out even an exhausted WWII Panzer Division. Properly modelled, the two sides would be three tech levels apart.

Silly results detract from the game. That is what everybody is complaining about.

Another thing - in real life nobody would ever get that much of a tech advantage unless before the war the two sides were not in contact (even through intermediaries), which at the WWII level of technology pretty much means "not on the same planet". This would be simply (and quite realistically) fixed by giving any civ which is behind a tech bonus proportional to the difference between itself and the most advanced civ with which it has contact. This, in conjuction with one or both of the proposed fixes for the resource issue plus a fix of the combat system, would put an end to silly results without otherwise unbalancing the game.

Something about China that I forgot to mention in the previous post (the History Proff wannabe in me can't resist) - they were also divided between the KMT, the Communists & assorted "Warlords" (basically remnants of the defunct Imperial regime's military setting up shop for themselves in some province and thumbing their noses at all claimants to central authority). Chang or Mao, take your pick, if either one had total control of the country they'd have driven the Japanese into the sea. In Civ terms, picture China as divided by a Civ2-style civil war and about half the cities in civil disorder when the Japanese invaded.

One last point - particularly for any lurking Firaxians - everything I write should be taken as constructive criticism. I want Civ3 to be great - wish I'd been a beta tester so I could tell you this stuff way back. I am playing and enjoying the game. I don't want my money back. I don't want Firaxis boycotted unto bankrupcy. I don't want Sid nerve stapled. A lot of the changes already in vs Civ2 are right in line with what I would have suggested (how air units are supposed to work is right out of the suggestion letter that I never quite found time to write). However, I am also assuming that the patched editor will give me significant ability to add units & techs and control the flow of time in the game (#turns, years/turn). Given that, and the ability of the AI to adapt to any mod I do through the official editor, then I'll mod the game to suit my tastes & Civ3 will be my regular pal until Civ4 comes out. Otherwise, it ends up like other games which I enjoyed but dropped for something else once the novelty wore off (Imperialism I & II, for example). So, please give me a Civilization that stands the test of time

[Venger]

Bill - of course, on the money. Combat should enhance the game, not detract. The lack of the HP/FP model hampers these results somewhat, as do some questionable unit designs and outright bugs. But, as you say, a patch should fix thse and give us the game we all want...

Venger
P.S. Surely you have to have SP:WAW...

[woody]

Originally posted by mmike87
You have two options. 1) Play it as it is 2) Edit the rules. That's the one thing I always LOVED about Civ is that the rules were editable. You can really play the game any darn way you want to, within limits. Want to make the tank invincible, do it. Why does it have to be an official mod?

The Civ3 detractors don't just want to unbalance the game for themselves. If they wanted to do that, they can just edit the rules and stop whining.

What they want to do is break the game for EVERYONE. Well, just let them try. Firaxis isn't going to break their game just to satisfy a bunch of spoiled children.

Thank God Firaxis fixed the stupid design rules in Civ2.

[Venger]

Originally posted by woody

The Civ3 detractors don't just want to unbalance the game for themselves. If they wanted to do that, they can just edit the rules and stop whining.

I paid money for a game that doesn't work right.

What they want to do is break the game for EVERYONE.

Then you can just edit the rules and stop whining, jerk.

Well, just let them try. Firaxis isn't going to break their game just to satisfy a bunch of spoiled children.

Woody (and that name can't be any more telling) won't be applying any patches, as any such patch will break an already perfect game...

Thank God Firaxis fixed the stupid design rules in Civ2.

Funny, about 80% of the entire game is based on Civ2, which was about 80% based on Civ1. Doofus.

Venger

[n.c.]

karlmarx9001- Such a thoughtful post at 5:55, such a lame one at 16:16.

There's no way to fix this perceived lack of power on modern units without completely breaking game balance *and* making the results unbelievable at the strategic level.

Is Civ III the only game you've played?

-"The results everyone appears to want"
-"What's actually pissing some people off"
These are as yet beyond your grasp. Try understanding 1st, insulting later.

-"I have no idea what everyone is complaining about."
Exactly.

You don't want to look as dumb as woody.

[Nuke gay whales]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by woody

>>they can just edit the rules and stop whining.<<

What? Jezzzz.... Some people!

I will try again... As you are SO smart, PLEASE tell everyone exactly how you would edit the rules to fix the following:

- The air superiority function does not work
- Bombers and jet fighters cannot sink naval units
- Spearmen can defeat tanks (and if you say that you can edit the HP of the tank, then you are also suggesting editing EVERY unit, as the tank will that much stronger than units like Infantry from its own age period)
- Air units have a max range of 8
- Armies cannot unload the units (and therefore cannot be upgraded)
- Cannot stack units together for mass movement (moving 30 units around the map during war is tedious)
- Armies have only one attack (3/4 individual attacks is MUCH more useful)


QUOTE] Originally posted by woody

>>What they want to do is break the game for EVERYONE. Well, just let them try. Firaxis isn't going to break their game just to satisfy a bunch of spoiled children.<<

Break it? you mean fix it... I would like to hear you say that you will NOT be patching the game once one is released...


QUOTE] Originally posted by woody

>>Thank God Firaxis fixed the stupid design rules in Civ2.<<

Ahhhh... Now I begin to understand you reasoning. Not once did a phalanx unit defeat an armour unit in Civ II. Now that your spearmen can stop the enemy tanks and infantry from running your weak civilization over, you are MUCH happier...

[Jolard]

As many of us have said ad-nauseum, there are many of us out here who are EXTREMELY happy with the balanced game we have now. I do not want to see a game where the first person to the highest quality units can invade the world without opposition. Where is the fun in that. Anyway, each to their own, and I understand why these people are so hostile and desperately want the combat tweaked, but I like it the way it is. I just want people to know that some of us are playing this game and loving it!