Still Don't Like the Combat system

[dunk]

I agree with you Tarquelne about Civ being a strategy / history game and not a wargame. But combat is such an important aspect. It's more of a gripe of mine rather than a real criticism. I am going to make a mod and tweak it until I'm happy with combat. I realize the combat was changed from Civ II to level the battlefield for technologically deficient civs. My opinion, . Regardless of your strategy (military, culture, commercial), technology is the most important aspect. It's just not, IN MY OPINION, important enough in combat as Civ III stands now.

Hopefully, this thread will lead to a bunch of people giving ideas on how to modify the rules to make the combat better and some mods where the units have different values. I'm going to try increasing everyone's HPs as Tarq suggested. Of course, that will wait until I get home from work.

[korn469]

try a mod, there are many that deal with improving combat

[dunk]

Do fractions count in the combat system? If they don't, are they rounded or truncated?

Does 5.25 become 5?

Does 5.75 become 6, or does it become 5?

[Thrawn05]

So, is everyone thinks Cavalry is over powered or under powered now? I thought everyone was complaining that Cavalry was over powered but I guess there are people who want it more powerful?

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by dunk999
Do fractions count in the combat system? If they don't, are they rounded or truncated?

Does 5.25 become 5?

Does 5.75 become 6, or does it become 5?

I believe that it is interger notation.

9 / 2 = 4
10 / 3 = 3

It seems that would be the best route from a programmer's standpoint.

[player1]

Originally posted by Thrawn05



I believe that it is interger notation.

9 / 2 = 4
10 / 3 = 3

It seems that would be the best route from a programmer's standpoint.

No, no it's a FLOAT (Firaxis said that).
What would be the point of forified Warriors (+25%) if it isn't.

It was float in Civ1, Civ2, SMAC and even in CTP.

[dunk]

Thrawn...

Thanks for the info.

I personally feel that the Cavalry unit is underpowered.

[dunk]

And thanks to player1

[civman2000]

Originally posted by Dienstag
At one point an entire 14 HP Cavalry Army was destroyed, having only dealt one HP of damage (I reloaded because if this, then lost that army a few turns later it what I deemed a 'fair' battle')

I do that with every battle, even if making it fair is against me! Every time I attack, I save... Hitpoints should really be brought back...my advice is do teh following:

Conscript--15 hp
Regular--18 hp
Veteran--21 hp
Elite--25 hp

The ratios arent the same as normal, and the graphic result is horrible, but it should be more fair...

[Tarquelne]

Hopefully, this thread will lead to a bunch of people giving ideas on how to modify the rules to make the combat better and some mods where the units have different values.

I think combat is flawed - yes, not a gripe - I think _I know best_ - in the balance between offensive and defensive units, and that offensive units are too powerfull - at least vrs. the AI. Against another human things might be fine. (Because I'm sure a human would use the offensive units better.) This is probably the opposite of what most people want to change... But here, in general, is what I did:

Hmm... actually, not much, come to think of it. I made a bunch of tweaks to individual units, but the only systemic change I made was to make all the "offensive" units - units that don't have a defense factor that is higher than the attack factor - more expensive. I also made bombardment units more expensive. I think I increased the costs by about 40%.

(I didn't apply the above change to ships - I made a different set of changes to the ships.)

A change that might still shift the play balance in the direction I think it should go, but would also be more realistic, would be to go ahead and make the technology differences much more realistic between units - but also include a more realistic _cost_ for that unit. So fewer, but more powerfull, advanced units. If you increase the cost more than the combat factors then you'll decrease the power of technology, but each individual unit will "feel" more realsitic. If you increase the power more than the cost then you'll increase the power of technology and get units that feel more realistic - but since you have increased the cost play balance won't be as altered as much as it would have been if the combat factors only had been changed. (I, of course, recommend that you increase the cost of offensive units more than the cost of defensive units.)

I wish we could individual adjust the maintience cost for each unit type.

The Draft seems to be a major part of the AI's strategy - I increased the number of unit's that can be drafted under each gov.

Oh yeah - Increaseing the number of hitpoints, if you increase each experience level by the same amount, will also make Drafting more powerfull.

If you find that you're playing on a difficulty level where you rarely get a significant tech lead then giving all the unit's very realistic combat factors shouldn't be much of a problem. I don't think having a handfull of cities fall to super-powerfull advanced units would be a bad thing.

Finally: Do look at how much the AI upgrades it's units. In my experince, the AI is very very bad about upgrading it's units. It seems to me that the AI was very much designed around a combat system that has relatively small differences between units of different technical levels. I seem to remember some people saying that the AI is better about upgrading after the latest patch. Anyone else see this? (I havn't noticed a difference, but I've been playing rather peacfull island-based maps lately, it's hard to tell.) Unless the AI gets better about upgrading, more realistic units might cripple it. (Would lowering the Gold cost of Shields help?)

[nbarclay]

If you flip a coin five times, chances are one in 32 of coming out heads every time. So if each round of combat between equal opponents is analogous to a coin toss (I'm not sure whether that's an accurate representation of the combat system or not), an elite unit fighting an evenly matched enemy could expect to go from undamaged to dead without inflicting any further damage on the enemy one time in 32. With a veteran unit, it's one time in 16. So it shouldn't be surprising when a badly damaged unit rallies and wins every now and then.

And note that those odds are per round (not counting rounds where no damage occurs), not per battle. So battles where one side gets exceptionally lucky at some point would be even more common.

Nor am I convinced that such events are entirely unrealistic. On land, a few survivors might hole up in highly defensible terrain and kill far more than their own number. Or they might get lucky and take out the opposing force's leader and throw it into confusion, providing an opportunity to snatch victory from defeat.

And at sea, a badly damaged unit might get in a lucky shot. As I recall, it was a single shell from the battleship Bismarck that sunk the Hood. (Granted, Hood had a design flaw that made it a bit of a special case, but couldn't a unit in the game have a similar vulnerability?). Yes, in the game it LOOKS like four or five rounds of combat. But if you keep in mind that the game has no built-in concept of a single hit doing several points of damage, you can come up with a story that fits the results in an at least somewhat plausible way.

In regard to spearmen taking out tanks, my interpretation is that a lot of those "spearmen" have gotten their hands on more modern equipment over the years even though they haven't been FORMALLY upgraded. They still don't have anywhere near the equipment and training of a more modern force, but with the right leadership and enough luck, they do have a tiny chance. (Think of the native American tribes that had varying numbers of captured or purchased firearms even though they didn't know how to make them and you get a general idea of what archer units in an era of rifles might be like.) (Hmm, sounds like a story idea, doesn't it?)

For the most part, I like Civ 3's combat system precisely because of its unpredictability. Yes, it gets frustrating when unexpectedly high losses throw a battle plan out of kilter. But isn't that kind of frustration the same thing real-world generals have faced throughout history?

Oh, by the way, in regard to how hard it is to take out infantry before tanks come along, does anyone remember a little conflict called World War I? How many great cavalry charges do you remember from that war?

Nathan

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Dienstag
In my last game, I found myself at war when my best offensive unit was Cavalry, and my enemy's cities were defended by Infantry. I was enduring ruinous losses and inflicting pathetically little damage. (Casualty rates approximately 2.5:1, I guess)
*snip*

Anyway, what with the now reduced chance of withdrawing, the higher defensive rating of Infantry, and the HP usually lost to Artillery, my Cavalry (all veteren and elite) were being massacred. I used massed artillery to reduce size 21 metropolises to size 3 rubbleheaps, and yet the defenders would seldom lose even a hitpoint to my artillery and assaults. At one point an entire 14 HP Cavalry Army was destroyed, having only dealt one HP of damage (I reloaded because if this, then lost that army a few turns later it what I deemed a 'fair' battle'). By the way, neither enemy city was on hills, and I never attacked across a river.

I did get tanks in time to send two of then against the 2nd city I took, but by then the war was winding down... One might say that Infantry are appropriately more powerful than obsolete Cavalry, but (A) I had no other choice and (B) I really think that for about 12-15 turns of intense warfare, my Cav vs Inf battles were statistically improbable in favor of the Inf.

About the only part of this that sounds truly bad is the idea that the bombardment didn't do much to the units in the cities. Of course, this may be entirely realistic. In WWI, the Cavalry got _slautered_ by the infantry. When one side has machine guns and trenches, and the other side has horses, well... the parents of a lot of dashing young cavelrymen are going to be reciving "... regret to inform you..." telegrams. In fact, the idea that only the tank was able to break the deadlock was right on. This is a case of historical realism winning out...

It gets worse as time goes on- in WWII the most modern "unit" that the polish army had was cavalry. I think it took less than a week for the Germans to run over them completly...

[Tarquelne]

OT:

Originally posted by Andrew Cory
In fact, the idea that only the tank was able to break the deadlock was right on. This is a case of historical realism winning out...

The new "light machinegun" was a big help too.

in WWII the most modern "unit" that the polish army had was cavalry.

True.... except for some airplanes, and some rather nice tanks. IIRC, they also had some state-of-the-art anti-tank guns.... not that the state-of-the-art ant-tank gun was very good at the time.

I think it took less than a week for the Germans to run over them completly...

The Germans had more tanks, and used them more effectively.

[Hurricane]

Originally posted by Andrew Cory
It gets worse as time goes on- in WWII the most modern "unit" that the polish army had was cavalry. I think it took less than a week for the Germans to run over them completly...

Aahh, the Polish cavalry myth. It´s interesting to see how some urban legends never die.

In fact, the Polish army was pretty well equipped, and they out up a much better resistance than for example the Balkan countries or France, considering the proportionally much smaller army.

From http://www.kasprzyk.demon.co.uk/www/WW2.html

There are many "myths" that surround the September Campaign; the fictional Polish cavalry charges against German tanks (actually reported by the Italian press and used as propaganda by the Germans), the alleged destruction of the Polish Air Force on the ground, or claims that Polish armour failed to achieve any success against the invaders. In reality, and despite the fact that Poland was only just beginning to modernise her armed forces and had been forced (by Britain and France) to delay mobilisation (which they claimed might be interpreted as aggressive behaviour) so that, at the time of invasion, only about one-third of her total potential manpower was mobilised, Polish forces ensured that the September campaign was no "walk-over". The Wehrmacht had so under-rated Polish anti-tank capabilities (the Polish-designed anti-tank gun was one of the best in the world at that time) that they had gone into action with white "balkankreuz", or crosses, prominently displayed in eight locations; these crosses made excellent aiming points for Polish gun-sights and forced the Germans to radically rethink their national insignia, initially overpainting them in yellow and then, for their later campaigns, adopting the modified "balkankreuz" similar to that used by the Luftwaffe. The recently-designed 7TP "czolg lekki", or light tank, the first in the world to be designed with a diesel engine, proved to be superior to German tanks of the same class (the PzKpfw I and II) inflicting serious damage to the German forces, limited only by the fact that they were not used in concentrated groups. They were absorbed by the Germans into their own Panzer divisions at the end of the campaign.

Q: How long did it take the Nazis to overrun Poland?

A: About as long as it took them to overrun France and drive the first invading British army to the brink of disaster (before Hitler unwisely halted his attack, giving the Brits time to escape certain annihilation.)

Of course, the French and British had a hell of a lot more time than the Poles to prepare; were not taken by surprise; and their nations had not been recently restored to the map after a 125 year partitioning by three mighty empires, with little or no help from their allies to rebuild their economies.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Hurricane
Aahh, the Polish cavalry myth. It´s interesting to see how some urban legends never die.

Quick! Contact Britannica so they can update their encyclopedia:

When war broke out the Polish Army was able to mobilize about 1,000,000 men, a fairly large number. The Polish Army was woefully outmoded, however, and was almost completely lacking in tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and antitank and antiaircraft guns. Yet many of the Polish military leaders clung to the double belief that their preponderance of horsed cavalry was an important asset and that they could take the offensive against the German mechanized forces. They also tended to discount the effect of Germany's vastly superior air force, which was nearly 10 times as powerful as their own.