Another look at combat

[ACooper]

Originally posted by Zealot


Ok, I'll bite this one.
So could someone please explain to me how can I lose an army of 3 veteran swordmen against one non-veteran spearman? I mean, we're talking about a full army, with a leader and everything! And the spearman was on plaind, for crying out loud!

I agree with what Ming said, but at least in Civ 2 I could get what I expected more often than in Civ 3!

If your unhappy with Civ 3 than go back to Civ 2. A new patch will come out sometime. Check the Apolyton main Civ3 site occasionally and as soon as it comes out you can download the patch and try Civ 3 again. Maybe it will suit your wishes then, if not let it go.

[Zachriel]

I have the same problem with that other game, Chess. I have this King. He's got to be the best unit, right? He can't even move more than one square. Even a lousy Bishop can do that. And the knight, he can jump, but my rook can't. And the Queen. A pawn -- I said a stupid pawn -- killed her. What is that all about?

The gamemakers certainly don't care about realism, that's for sure. I want my money back.

[steelehc]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Seriously, I love Chess. I don't get many chances to play.

I think combat in Civ3 is arguably messed up, however, it isn't a wargame as many people have said.

Steele

[Tarquelne]

To volcanohead

"One other thing, why do the hardcore pro-Civ people use both the 'Look, its a fleet of ships" or "they need training" arguments and 'it's not a simulation' to defend..."

Hardcore pro-Civ people? Anyway....
The two arguments you mention ("fleet", "training") are both appeals to realism, yes. "Not a simulation" is simply a statement indicating that the level of realism isn't very high. The "fleet" type argument is used when someone says "This is too unrealistic" or something similar.... the "not a simulation" argument is used when someone says "Civ _should_ be totally realistic."

Life isn't digital - and neither is Civ3. Strategy games are allowed to go for a realistic "feel", but still have extremely unrealistic characterstics. (Panzer General is a good example. It looked and felt so much like a war game that many people thought it was supposed to be one, and hated it because it was such a BAD wargame.)

"...the annoyances which are seen by more critical people?"

What more (too?) critical people call "annoyances" I _might_ agree are annoyances, but I'd be more likely to characterize them as imperfections. Or the even more neutral "compromizes."

Personally, I'd love to see a full blown wargame-style combat engine added to civ. Would a Firaxis rep. like to comment on the sales potential of such a game?

"Isn't it clear there's just a small problem of logic in an argument that claims the combat system is _very_ realistic but disregards everything that doesn't make sense by saying it's because it's not a war simulation."

Yes. That's why I'd _never_ argue that the combat system, as a whole, is very realistic. The point here is that the game has to strike a balance between realism, playability, and - though its often forgotten - accesibility (simplicity.) As a mass market strategy title Civ3 should emphasize playability and accesibility over realism.

Zeolot:
"So could someone please explain to me how can I lose an army of 3 veteran swordmen against one non-veteran spearman? I mean, we're talking about a full army, with a leader and everything! And the spearman was on plaind, for crying out loud!"

Welcome to the wonderful world of chance. I recently lost in one turn more than a dozen Cavalry to a mixed group of Spearmen, Cavlary and Pikemen.

Or maybe "welcome to the wonderful world of math." Are you not aware that the Defense of a Spearmen is 2, and that a Swordman's attack is only 3?

[copcartman]

To Tarquelne:

I wasn't saying that the game would be better if it were more complex, or that I would want it that way. I just said that the occasional strange, unrealistic events are unsolvable by adding more layers to the current game.

And of course there is room for improvements in the game, without or with little increased complexity. Any step towards increased realism is a step forward if other factors are fixed. The bombardment issue has nothing to do with complexity, for instance. (you seem to have misunderstood what I meant by the bombardment, I didn't imply that one hit point should be "saved" to the next turn, I said that preventing a unit from being sunk just because it is the remains of a larger group, is unrealistic)

[Tarquelne]

"I just said that the occasional strange, unrealistic events are unsolvable by adding more layers to the current game."

By more "layers" do you mean more rules? If so, I don't think that's true... and the bombardment of ships is a perfect example. (If not ignore the rest of this post and please explain what you mean.)

"The bombardment issue has nothing to do with complexity, for instance."

Au contrare...

"(you seem to have misunderstood what I meant by the bombardment, I didn't imply that one hit point should be "saved" to the next turn,"

You didn't say that, but I think you did imply it, because...

"I said that preventing a unit from being sunk just because it is the remains of a larger group, is unrealistic)"

And sinking a whole fleet via bombardment is unrealistic... but I agree that sinking the remains of a fleet isn't unrealistic. However, how do you distinguish between the remains of a previously bombarded fleet and fleet that's under bombardment? I think the only way to do that properly is to not allow ships to be sunk via bombardment on the first turn they're knocked down to 1 hp by bombardment. But on subsequent turns bombardment can sink them. (Because the unit is no longer a "fleet", but rather "the remains of a fleet.")

So with ship bombardment I think we could eliminate an unrealistic element by adding a rule.

But requiring the player to make that distinction adds some complexity. The player either needs to remember which ships were damaged this turn (could be a problem when reloading a saved game, or if there are multiple ships) or the programmers have to add a little icon, or make a graphic change for the ship, or something, to mark the unit as a vulnerable remnant. That's not much complexity.... but I don't know if its much of an improvment either, if any. Sure, its more realistic, but does it improve gameplay?

"Any step towards increased realism is a step forward if other factors are fixed."

I think the two problems with that statement are:

1) Increased realism is necessarily good. I think it's usually good... but increased realism generally means more details. A game could be better served by less-realistic but more interesting/fun details - or less details (realism) if the game is already too complex.

2) "if other factors are fixed." True... but "fixing" those other factors is easier said than done.

I think there are few, if any, "holes" - glaring flaws - in the Civ3 combat system... except with regards to realism. And I think that's all because of the relative simplicity of the system. Someone mentioned chess - I think that's an excellent example. There are obviously a host of things one could do to make chess more realistic... but would any really improve it? I don't think so.

[copcartman]

Originally posted by Tarquelne
And sinking a whole fleet via bombardment is unrealistic...

That's what I'm getting at! To fix this problem (if you really must fix it) the core rule that an attack is made either by enemy contact or by "bombardment" must me replaced. It's too simple to begin with.

I get the feeling you assume I don't enjoy the game as it is. I really do, my main point was just that if (IF!) you need extra realism (in certain areas) you must rebuild the rules from the bottom. So I think we actually agree there, that it's better to leave the rules as they are than trying to fix them by adding more.

The chess parable is really irrelevant in this case. Civ has appealing aspects both as a mind-game and as a real world model/simulator, whereas chess has only the former.

"Any step towards increased realism is a step forward if other factors are fixed."

I think the two problems with that statement are:

There really is only one problem, since they are dependent on each other. And the statement is true nonetheless, and should be applied wherever possible.

[Tarquelne]

"And sinking a whole fleet via bombardment is unrealistic...

That's what I'm getting at! To fix this problem (if you really must fix it) the core rule that an attack is made either by enemy contact or by "bombardment" must me replaced. It's too simple to begin with. "

What's the problem with "an attack is made either by enemy contact or by "bombardment""?


"So I think we actually agree there, that it's better to leave the rules as they are than trying to fix them by adding more."

Ok... but I'm still feeling contentious, so:

"Any step towards increased realism is a step forward if other factors are fixed."
....
And the statement is true nonetheless, and should be applied wherever possible."

I think my problem with the statement is that I simply don't belive you can increase the realism without altering the rest of the "equation" in some way. I don't think you can ever "fix" all the other factors. Can you give me an example of a step toward realism that's "a step forward" but doesn't alter any of the "other factors." (A not necessarily exhaustive list of those other factors being complexity and quality of play.)

[Terser]

This debate might never have happened if the Firaxians had imitated CivII:

CivIII Setup Screen:
Please select one:

O Simplified combat rules--Similar to Civilization I. No firepower(default).

O Complex combat rules--Similar to Civilization II.

Can anyone tell me why this option was not included? If not in the setup screen then in the editor. Why?

Anybody?

[yin26]

Soren said of firepower that it added needless complexity.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by copcartman
The chess parable is really irrelevant in this case. Civ has appealing aspects both as a mind-game and as a real world model/simulator, whereas chess has only the former.

When chess first hit the market, I think it was sometime before microsoft even, it was considered a state-of-the-art war simulation.

People would have fancy pieces, such as pawns that looked like spearmen, Kings with real gold crowns, and rooks as grand siege machines. But the game didn't really catch on as soon as everybody found out that sometimes an enemy spearman would kill your rook.

[Tarquelne]

"Anybody?"

Not that this answer will give you any satisfaction, but it might simply be because Firaxis, like me, never liked the Civ2 combat resolution system. Frankly, I thought the FP/HP system was a bit silly. Maybe because while it was a move toward a more advanced combat resolution system it wasn't, IMO, enough of a change to justify the presence of the mechanic. (I feel that if I've got to deal with an oversimplistic combat system it may as well be _extremely_ simplistic.) I thought Civ1 had a terrible combat system (compared to a wargame), and with the addition of FP the Civ2 system was still terrible. ...Maybe it was just that I thought most people overestimated the utility of the FP mechanic.

The basic Civ3 combat resolution method isn't any better, of course - it isn't more realistic, or detailed, or subtle or anything... just a little simpler. But I don't believe it's any worse either. I think the designers realized that adding a small amount of complexity to combat resolution (such as something like the FP system) didn't improve the game play significantly, and that adding a large amount of complexity would make the game into something they didn't want it to be. OTOH, I do think that the addition of bombardment and air-missions was worth the trouble - they actually change the way you play the game, not just how combat is resolved.

[Capt Dizle]

Cooper, you are such a class act.

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Ming
Maybe the leader was an idiot... and lead them into a trap

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.

[Sikander]

The biggest problem with Civ3's combat system is that it isn't very interersting, and you end up doing a lot of it. In fact the same can be said for many parts of the game. There are few strategic choices which maintain my interest surrounded by a huge amount of repetetive 'play'.

I have never played any of the Civ games because of the wargaming aspects, they have all been terrible wargames. I play for the grand strategy and the fun of finding new methods and combinations to achieve my goals. 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, and rehashed a lot of stuff that is well past it's prime. It's become one giant war of scale and attrition.

I'm glad there are people who find it interesting, fun, and worthy of replay. I just wish I was one of them. I'm looking forward to MOO3, and I'm still enjoying SMAX and EU, so I'm not impossible to please, but Civ3 was disappointing. On to new challenges and ideas. The great thing is there are always new games on the horizon.