Way to "Solve" weird combat results?

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

The simplest way to solve the weird "hoplite beats tank" scenario might be to give units an extra stat-armour (not sure if this can be done though!)
Basically most ancient units will have an armour of 0.
Armoured ancient units (eg Swordsmen, legions and holpites) would have an armour of 1.
Then Middle Ages units would be 1 and 2 respectively.
Industrial units would be 2 and 3 and modern units would be 3 and 4 (or else all units after Middle Ages would be 2 and 3)
The way armour might work is in 5 ways:

1) Armour deducts from a units attack strength (AS) for the purposes of determining % chance of causing damage.
2) As above, but the Difference in armour values is deducted from the AS of the unit with the lowest armour.
3) Armour*10 is a percentage which is deducted from a units % chance of doing damage (a 3 armour unit has a 30% lower chance of being damaged than a unit with armour 0).
4) As above, but as in (2), only the Difference in armour values is subtracted.
5) Armour is used to divide the % chance of a unit doing damage (eg if a unit attacks a tank (with armour 4), and normally has a 20% of doing damage each round, then it will only have a 5% chance to damage the unit!)
If the last option were used then I would envisage units having arnour values of 1-5 (as you can't divide by 0!!!)
Anyway, it's just a minor tweak, and it doesn't hugely unbalance the game (after all, a swarm of spearmen could "eventually" overwhelm a single tank, it'd just take a lot of them!)
Now all we need to know is a) can this be done through the editor and/or b) will Firaxis pick up on this idea and include it in the Patch?

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[ulaw]

I think that combat is fine. domination is the only way i ever win. if a hoplite could stop 12 tanks then id be upset. there is alot of dumb luck in combat so make sure you have more units rathar than better units. ie when you attack with tanks bring along your cavalry army that you think is OBSOLETE, it can still give a good whoping even once the nme has infantry. (btw cavalry is better when you first get it than when u first get tanks so USE THEM) works up through diety!

btw if you pay another ai to go to war with the guy who has hoplites then he wont have many of them left to fight your tanks, just modern units so you wont have to complain when u loose.

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

Look Ulaw, I have no problem with a cavalry unit damaging or even occassionally beating a tank (after all, they proved it can happen in Afghanistan just recently!)
I'm even willing to accept that 10 hoplites can EVENTUALLY overwhelm a tank (by sheer weight of numbers), but if a single spearman or hoplite can beat a tank even ONCE in combat, then theres a little too MUCH dumb luck in this combat system for my taste!!! I'd like to think that my proposal takes the "dumb" out of the "dumb Luck" equation!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

[Your.Master]

Originally posted by The_Aussie_Lurker
Look Ulaw, I have no problem with a cavalry unit damaging or even occassionally beating a tank (after all, they proved it can happen in Afghanistan just recently!)
I'm even willing to accept that 10 hoplites can EVENTUALLY overwhelm a tank (by sheer weight of numbers), but if a single spearman or hoplite can beat a tank even ONCE in combat, then theres a little too MUCH dumb luck in this combat system for my taste!!! I'd like to think that my proposal takes the "dumb" out of the "dumb Luck" equation!!

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker.

There is no such thing as "one spearman". You have one unit of spearmen. A unit of spearmen could conceivably take out a unit of tanks (especially since one tank unit is not necessarily the same number of tanks as one spearman unit is of spearmen).

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

I am aware of that, but you also have to rember TWO things.

1) Even if the spearmen have a 10 or 100 to 1 advantage, they have to get close enough to the tank to attack it. Meanwhile, the tank is wiping them out with its main gun and its coaxial MG!!!

2) Assuming any spearmen reach the tank, then they have to penetrate the tanks armour with their spears!!!

You see where I'm coming from. Now, I realise that the factors I've explained above can't be completely accounted for in THIS combat system, but at least armour could help balance things a bit (I should point out that, though I've called it armour, I'm actually referring to a number of factors that make modern units more capable than older units!!)

Yours,
The_Aussie_Lurker

[Seneca]

The spearmen could sneak up behind the tank and jam their spears in its wheels... maybe...

[Mikael]

What the "master" probably means is that one unit of spearmen is not necessarily only made of men with spears. Civ is too abstract for that.
If you take spearmen from Ancient Greece and you put them in a modern environment they won't have trouble to learn about molotov cocktails, stealth, and they eventually would get their hands on rifles or some AT weapons. Granted, they wouldn't know how to operate these weapons 100%, but I'm sure they could do some damage one way or another.

In Civ3 it needs to be somewhat toned down.

[wotan321]

The spearmen could sneak up behind the tank and jam their spears in its wheels... maybe...

...yeah...that's the ticket! Or maybe..... the lone spearman....made some bird sounds.... and the hungry tank gunner opened the hatch so he could go catch the bird for some lunch.... and as he did so the lone spearman JUMPED into the tank and stabbed the rest of the crew to death.....it could happen.....

Come on..... ITS STOOOPID! I am having ironclads gunning down my destroyers either on attack or defend with great regularity.

IN REALITY this would not happen.

But.... this is a game... not reality, and I heard they made this sort of thing happen in the game so that if a human player got behind, he wouldn't get his backside handed to him/her. But I figure..... if you let yourself get that far behind.... you should lose. If its a game... you need some opportunity to lose. I guess at this point we can just jack up the attack and defend numbers on later units.

[Green Giant]

Its play balance.

Its keeps a civ which doesn't have rubber and oil out of shear bad luck from getting totally conquered by 3 enemy tanks, like in Civ 2. That was unrealistic. Of course the tanks should win over hoplites a majority of time, and if they don't, then there is a problem. But I have never seen it and supect people may be exagerating a bit.

Fact: In civ 3 you need numerical superiority every time you plan an offensive, no matter what. I really don't see why you can't adjust to this. It works the same way with the AI.

Besides, I thought you all wanted a challenge?

PS: Remember that defenders in 12 or over cities get quite a large combat bonus. This might contribute to the "messed up" results you are haveing.

[Green Giant]

It just seems like the name of the unit is bothering you guys. Would it be better if Firaxis changed the name of the hoplite to poorly-equiped militia at the start of the modern age?