Another look at combat

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Zealot
Helloooooooo! Army of 3 veteran swordmen lost to one single regular spearman fortified on plains!!!
Is there anybody out there who can translate to idiot-language so that I can understand where the heck was the trap?


Tarquelne, here's how I see my army should have worked:
3 units*3 attack + 50 % veteran per unit (4.5) = 13.5 attack/army
now the defense:
1 unit*2 defense + 50% of 2 (I believe a fortified unit gives 50% of defense in Civ 3 as well) = 3 defense


Now you tell me how acceptable can the chance element be in order to allow this defeat to happen.

The odds are different to that if you work through the Civ III factors carefully but still very much in your favor. Personally I've never ever had such a bad result. I suspect you could spend the next month trying to recreate it in different games and failing completely.

In terms of trap, your idiot commander could have come across the enemy's supply camp and lost control of his army who go into looting frenzy. They promptly get roaring drunk on captured wine. The wine is drugged and the camp had been left exposed on purpose. While they are all too ill to fight they are slaughtered. Poisoning water or food or just giving the enemy barrelloads of alcohol is a trick that has been performed countless times in history. Of course these only apply if you don't think Civ combat only represents two sides marching up to each other in formation and having a straight fight with no tricks.

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I suspect you could spend the next month trying to recreate it in different games and failing completely.

I know. And I won't play Civ 3 again until I see that there is a change in the game that will insert the FUN factor and remove the TEDIUM factor.

And thanks for the moment of humour.

Oh, OMT, I was the Greek fighting the Romans. Don't know how could this possibly clear things up, but I would do anything to help.

[macaskil]

Zea

[macaskil]

Ooops - hit Return by mistake

what I meant to say was

Zealot - there is NO 50% bonus for veteran - sorry!

What it does you is give 1 extra hit point

So

Attacker

1 swordsman, veteran

defender

1 spearman, regular, fortified, plains

Odds of attacker winning - 51%!!!!!!!

Now with 3 attackers the odds of the attackers winning go up to approx 90%. Having an Army seems to make no difference to the odds.

That means if the situation arises 100 times the defenders will win 10 times.

So, what's the problem? If a horse wins a race at odds of 10 to 1 it doesn't mean the race is fixed.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Zealot
Army of 3 veteran swordmen lost to one single regular spearman fortified on plains!!!
Is there anybody out there who can translate to idiot-language so that I can understand where the heck was the trap?

A single veteran swordsman v. a spearman fortified on the plains, no river, has a 1/3 chance of defeat. To lose three times in a row would be approximately 1/27. If you play very often, this will happen sometimes.

http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html

[Zealot]

Originally posted by macaskil
Ooops - hit Return by mistake

what I meant to say was

Zealot - there is NO 50% bonus for veteran - sorry!

What it does you is give 1 extra hit point

My God, you're right! I'm so embarassed for mixing civ 2 with Civ 3! How could I forget that?

But how in the world did you reach to those '90% aprox'?

[Zachriel]

Civulator

Use the Civulator

http://www.columbia.edu/~sdc2002/civulator.html

[Tarquelne]

"The biggest problem with Civ3's combat system is that it isn't very interersting, and you end up doing a lot of it."

I strongly agree with that.

I do like Civ3 - but I've only once played a game to completion. As soon as I'm sure to win I quit and start a new one. Sometimes this happens quite early in the game. "Hmm... I'm now all alone on the largest landmass. The CPs are all doomed."
I only have fun in Civ3 when I'm struggling.

"Civ 3 stepped back from the strategic dynamics that made the other games so good in large part to help the AI remain more competitive"

I don't think that's true. It's certainly true that the game is in a way far simpler than Civ2 or SMAC (fewer units, dip. options, city improvements, etc.). I'm very happy to lose those but get a better AI in return. But people play Civ3 in very different ways, (For example, I'm puzzled by the importantce so many players attach to score. I win, or I lose, and thats it.) , and people have different tastes in games. There have been games that I thought were good... but I just didn't enjoy them. Nothing wrong with the game, nothing wrong with me: just some design decisions that, while probably right for most people, spoiled the game for me.

Whoa! Sorry - I _do_ agree with your "stepped back from the strategic dynamics that made the other games so good." Civ3 has a _different_ set of "strategic dynamics." I think it might be summarized by: Fewer options, but because of the improved AI you have to take more care with the options you do have. That's a very different type of game from Civ2 and especially SMAC. (Or MoM.)

And the nature of those new options is important too, I think. Without Strategic Resources, for example, I bet I'd think that Civ3 was, on the whole, a failure. I've always liked trading games, and games with "logistical" concerns, so Strategic/Luxury Resources were exactly the sort of thing someone like me wants to see in a Civ-type game. I like having to jump through hoops at times to get ahold of a needed resrouce, or have to cope and do without... or totally screw over a CP by conniving to withold a resource.

[Zealot]

I did use the Civulator! That's why I'm asking!!!

Heck, macaskil said that 1 swordsman, veteran vs 1 spearman, regular, fortified, plains -> Odds of attacker winning - 51%!!!!!!!
But the Civulator said 70.421%! Quite a difference, huh? And it's also a little less than 1/3 chance of defeat. But I'm not complaining in any way about 1v1 units. Not at all.

Now, I don't know if I can do this, but to emulate an army of 3 swordmen, I inserted '9' as the attack strength in the Civulator. and the outcome was: 97.166%! Now I know that there's still those 2,834% chance that I can lose my army. But the other problem is that most of the times my army loses lots of hitpoints, which forces me to give my army a forced rest to recover *every time* I attack! So I'm losing time here! Where's the use for an army, then?

Oh, one more thing: even if I forgot, and I was crossing a river at the time of attack (I don't remember), I still have a chance of destroying it of 95.554%!

[Deathwalker]

I personally want planes to sink ships, I do understand this idea when applied to gound units, thay never are truley distroyed no matter how much you bomb them.
But sinks can and are destroyed by air power, it was stupid not to include this in the game. In the editor you should have the option to select if a unit can be destoyed buy airpower/bombing.

[Zachriel]

The chance of winning with a veteran swordsman v. a regular spearman fortified across a river is 62.5%, so the chance of losing is 37.5% or 0.375. The chance of losing all three combats would be 0.375 ^ 3, or about 1/19.

Next time try to attack on the same side of the river. This will reduce your chance of losing to about 1/39 -- only half the risk.

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Zachriel
The chance of winning with a veteran swordsman v. a regular spearman fortified across a river is 62.5%, so the chance of losing is 37.5% or 0.375. The chance of losing all three combats would be 0.375 ^ 3, or about 1/19.

Next time try to attack on the same side of the river. This will reduce your chance of losing to about 1/39 -- only half the risk.

If an army is nothing more than a stack of 3 units, with no attacking bonus nor representing a 3-to-1 odds, then armies are worthless, and it shows how untested this game is.
OTOH, we can possibly see stack units in a future patch, since the button to add unit to army is already there! All Firaxis has to do then is rename it to "Add unit to stack"!

Again, an army shouldn't represent 3 combats, but a 3-to-1 odd, with the tactical advantage of having a great leader comanding them.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Zealot
If an army is nothing more than a stack of 3 units, with no attacking bonus

You should read the posts more closely before reacting.

Armies have a huge advantage in combat; if you attack from the same side of the river, the odds of winning are about 98%. There is no single unit in the ancient age that comes even close to this advantage. The odds are actually better than a Marine attacking the same Spearman under the same circumstances.

[Cossack]

For the first time today I agree with Tarquelne,

Firstly I agree that units represent a number of ships, regiments/divisions etc. however with regards to the bombardment problem, you may not be able to destroy all the ships/planes/men of a unit but you can certainly render them an ineffective fighting force for a period of time and in real life aren't the remaining units often simply disbanded and added to the strenth on another military unit. Therefore I think that you should be able to render a unit completely 'ineffective' 0 HP but with 1HP cashed in some form to be transferred to nearby units, thereby the HP of the receiving unit could increase beyond its maximum for a period of time. That is my solution, or at least having the option to do that.

The problem with spearmen killing tanks in the modern period could be easily solved by programming in the line that any defending/attacking unit separated by the defending/attacking unit by a timeframe of more more than one age cannot damage the more modern unit. Hence no more problem, although returning to the HP/FP system may possibly be the correct solution.

I also think that there should be some kind of unit progression from muskets to riflement to semi-auto weapons, but this IMHO is because there are too few units and too few techs, plus there should be at least one more age between for Middle ages and industrial - (colonial or something).

For example on the discovery of gunpowder you get musketmen, but in history, the progress of firearms at this point went matchlock, flintlock and percussion cap muskets/rifles. These units could be discovered at different points in time (tech related)or you may be forced to make/build specific terrain or buildings improvements to produce such units. The units could have the same strengths but different offensive/defensive and/or movement bonuses/penalties as in SMAC or they could just be slightly different strength units.

The same argument goes for ironclad/dreadnoughts/2nd world war destroyer and tanks (first world war/2nd world war and modern) as well as ancient units (the roman legionary went through several phases of development) as did the knight (Tenth century knight (norman) chainmail / middle ages knight a combination of plate armour/chainmail and late middle ages knight heavy plate armour). Similar development phases can be described for other units. I just think it would make the game more interesting.

My other point is that in the musketmen/cavalry/cannon period cavalry were used a threat weapon to force musket men into squares that could not be broken by cavalry. However, cannons would then destroy the musketmen squares or musketmen in line would then have a greater firepower advantage. I think this combined arms approach would make for a much more interesting game, then the power of cavalry could be reduced as they would get a massive offensive penalty if they attacked a unit where there was no allied musketmen or artillery on a square adjacent to the enemy. This combined arms approach could probably be applied to many other periods too.

Just some thoughts

The English Cossack

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Zachriel
You should read the posts more closely before reacting.

Armies have a huge advantage in combat; if you attack from the same side of the river, the odds of winning are about 98%.

Ah but it is you who should read the posts more closely before reacting, my friend! For I have already stated a little above that if I put 9 in the swordmen attack strenghth I will get a 97% chance of beating that spearman!

But are you really sure that the army acts with combined strenghth? Because if they are that strong then they shouldn't lose so many hitpoints when fighting!