Another look at combat

[Zachriel]

A 9 attack strength is not equivalent, though the numbers may be coincidentally close in some situations.

What happens is that each swordsman fights with an attack of 3 and four hitpoints each. All three units have to lose before the army is lost. Or you can treat it as a single unit with an attack of 3 but with 12 hitpoints, but the civulator does not handle this case.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. In any case, an Army has big advantages, especially in the ancient era. Sorry you lost your leader, but Napoleon lost a couple times, too.

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Zachriel
A 9 attack strength is not equivalent, though the numbers may be coincidentally close in some situations.

Ok, then how did you reach the 98%?

Originally posted by Zachriel
Sorry you lost your leader, but Napoleon lost a couple times, too.

Err... right...

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Zealot
Ok, then how did you reach the 98%?

Without the river the chance of winning is 70.4%, or a 29.6% chance of losing. You have to lose three times to lose the army, so 0.296^3 = 0.0259 chance of losing all three rounds. (The ^ is the exponent symbol.) In other words a 2% chance of losing all three rounds, or approximately 98% chance of winning at least one round.

You are right though, you may be depleted in hitpoints and have to return to neutral ground to rest.

[Chronus]

Helloooooooo! Army of 3 veteran swordmen lost to one single regular spearman fortified on plains!!!

This actually reminds me of some of the earlier American Civil War battles. If I'm not mistaken, General Lee's army, in some cases, was outnumbered almost 3 to 1. Furthermore, the Southern armies were not as equiped as the Northern armies. Nevertheless, Lee won far more battles than he lost.

So then, Zealot, it appears that George McClellan was, indeed, leading your army!

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.

Ugh! I hope I never see this implemented.

Give the spearmen a REALLY LOW CHANCE of success, if you must, but to give tanks an automatic 100% kill rate against the spearman doesn't leave room for unusual factors. Consider the two Mongol invasions of Japan . . . both failed because of storms (I believe a storm was also a factor in the failed Spanish invasion of England).

I suspect that some people who like the absolute "tanks always defeat spearmen" idea see combat as just that, a unit of tanks vs a unit of spearmen . . . nothing more or less. If that's what they want, hey, that's fine. Consequently, when spearmen confront their tanks, they see a bunch cavedwellers meeting a bunch of tanks out in the open, ready to flee at the first "boom" of tankfire, with the tanks running them over, left and right. Naturally, they are disappointed when it doesn't happen.

Should I lose my tanks to spearmen (I haven't lost my tanks to anything lower than cavalry, yet) I will see an unexpected tornado coming out of the north and tossing my vehicles left and right . . . or perhaps a snow storm, freezing the equipment or obstructing the much needed fuel trucks from my tanks . . . or perhaps a Panzer commander who is so arrogant and cocky that his drunken troops were caught sleeping in their bunks as the spearmen were able to quietly sneak in during the cover of night.

Obviously, this shouldn't happen often . . . I'm simply arguing against the "absolute" idea.

[zergling]

Right.. anti-tank spearman whiner seem to have seen Civ3 battles as face-to-face battle with no tricks involved.. use your imagination for god's sake

Tarquelne, you have made many good points. I completely agree with you.