Still Don't Like the Combat system

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Brutus66
Depends on what side you're on, Andrew. Here in Virginia, lots of folks see Lee as a hero, and I think for good reason.
You really have to study the causes of the American civil war to find the truth. When the original colonies were discussing forming a union, some of the southern states refused to join unless they were guaranteed that they could leave the union if they so desired.
Later, Lincoln kept them in the union, and did so at the point of a bayonette.

I don't wish to continue this argument in public (I sent you an E-mail...), but do wish to mention the case of eastern Tenn. which kept in the CSA at the point of bayonette. Also, causes of the war have no berring on the fact that Lee took up arms against his nation, and thus commited treason...

Originally posted by Brutus66
Many folks are certain that the war was fought against slavery, and that is simply not true.

Right! the war was fought to preserve slavery. Fourtunatly the side that started the war lost...

Originally posted by Brutus66
If you don't like Lee because he defended an institution that condoned slavery, maybe we should discuss Washington and Jefferson, the architects of the US and, also, slave-plantation owners...

Nope, don't like Lee because he betrayed the USA...

[Brutus66]

I see your signature "remember the world trade center". Stop watching CNN Andrew and start reading history.

[Salvor]

Wow. How did this degenerate into a flamefest on R.E. Lee?

Heck, I'm a born-and-bred Yank and I've got nothing but the utmost respect for the guy. He made his decision to defend his home state out of loyalty, not betrayal. Back then there was a lot more belief in the 10th amendment, and the USA was considered a republic (or confederation, if you prefer) of semi-autonomous states.

(Note that the S in USA stands for state, not province, territory, commonwealth, or colony. State in this context generally refers to a fully independent country.)

Lee was offered the job as head of the GAR but turned it down stating that he must remain loyal to his homeland of Virginia.

Of all the personalities involved in that conflict, there was no single individual more steadfastly loyal, virtuous, or filled with more moral integrity than Robert E. Lee.

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Akka le Vil
Personnal view : the system does not SUFFICIENTLY reflect reality. It can be argued that it's because of game balance, or that it's not really a legion and a cavalry but a 3-3-1 and a 6-3-3 unit, or plenty of reasons.

Well, you can certainly change the unit stats to make the combat factors more realistic, which will make the game easier for whoever is the tech-leader. If that's YOU, the human player, then bumping up the difficulty level should bring things back into balance. If that's the AI, then lowering the difficulty should work... Furthermore, making more advanced units progressively more expensive could be used instead, or in addition to the difficulty level change. (I'm guessing that where many people would object to a Cavalry unit being "unrealistically" underpowered, they wouldn't object to it being "unrealistically" expensive.) So, with those caveats, I don't think more realistic unit combat factors would hurt gameplay.

As an old wargamer, giving the units realistic Attack, Defense and Movement factors isn't going to make much difference to me - I'll still think the combat system is horribly unrealistic. Come to think of it, that'd make things worse... the balance (such as it is) would be thrown off, and I might start _really_ feeling the lack of logistics, etc, etc, etc. in the "wargame" part of Civ3. But I think it comes down to taste (so agreeing with "Personal view... sufficiently realistic."). In a strategy game I'm willing to put up with a LOT of unrealistic stuff (I think Imperialism II is a great game, for example), where I'd find it utterly unacceptable in a wargame or a sim.

I personnally see that for a historical-flavored game, the lack of credibility of the fighting system just destroy the immersivity.

I think what you're doing here is wishing Civ3 was a wargame. Note that you don't say "Lack of credibility in the..." Improvements, terrain, food, Culture, trading, or any other system, but the _fighting_ system. If you want "credibility" in a game's fighting system I don't think _any_ game firmly in the "strategy" genre (ie - not a wargame - even a bad one) will give it to you.

Lets say you give all the units in Civ3 completely realistic Attack, Defense, Movement and even Build Cost factors. You _still_ don't have realistic maintinance costs, a supply system, ZOCs (in the wargame/Civ2 sense), or well, lots of stuff.

What you will get, I guess, I a "realistic" probability of what happens when Napoleonic Cavalry fights 14'th Century Pikemen.... "realistic", but I'm leary of saying "historical." I think the gameplay benefits are dubious... and I'm not sure where you'll find _any_ historical credibility in this historically-flavored but thourgouly a-historical game.

[Zachriel]

What he said

Originally posted by Tarquelne
Well, you can certainly change the unit stats to make the combat factors more realistic, . . . Lets say you give all the units in Civ3 completely realistic Attack, Defense, Movement and even Build Cost factors. You _still_ don't have realistic maintinance costs, a supply system, ZOCs (in the wargame/Civ2 sense), or well, lots of stuff.
... and I'm not sure where you'll find _any_ historical credibility in this historically-flavored but thourgouly a-historical game.

Within the abstraction, I think it is "realistic." Sure, there are going to be odd results, but life is odd anyway -- odder than anything that ever happens in Civ3.

If you mean realistic, like the Pentagon can use it to plan their next combat -- well, no. If you mean realistic in the very broad sense that infantry units are almost impossible to dislodge from fortified positions and that bombard can't win without ground support (current combat in Afghanistan), then yes.

[Zachriel]

The best-laid plans o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain
For promised joy.

- Robert Burns

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Andrew Cory

Umm, are you calling R.E. Lee a hero? By any reasonable definition of the word "treason", he commited it...

By ANY REASONABLE definition? I don't regard a person of German birth who became a U.S. citizen and later fought for the U.S. against Germany in World War II as having committed treason. After all, at the time of the war, he was an American, not a German. Do you regard me as unreasonable for holding that viewpoint?

As far as Lee was concerned, at the time of the Civil War, he was a citizen of the CSA, not a citizen of the USA. Therefore, from his perspective, he was fighting against an enemy set out to conquer his home nation, not fighiting against his home nation. It is debatable whether or not Lee's perspective is legally correct (especially since the North never dared take the question of whether or not secession was legal before the Supreme Court). But Lee's perspective on the situation is certaily one that a rational person can defend.

So (just to stick a sliver of Civ content in), I see nothing wrong with having Lee among the "great leaders" of the American civ. Fortunately, in our games, he doesn't get stuck in a horrible situation where either side he chooses to fight on will pit him against good friends.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

In my opinion, people who argue about which side was “right” in America's Civil War and which was “wrong” are missing the reality of the situation. BOTH sides were wrong.

The South was certainly wrong to want to preserve a system that enslaved people for no better reason than the color of their skin. But the North was wrong to use tariff laws to twist a union intended for the benefit of ALL the states into a way of enriching themselves at the South’s expense. It wasn’t a simple case of a fair, selfless North against an unfair, tyrannical South.

Further, no matter how wrong the South was to want to keep slavery, Northern abolitionists were way off base to think they could unilaterally throw out one of the key compromises that allowed the union to come together without splitting it back apart. Morally, a case can certainly be made that inflicting the horrors of war to end the horrors of slavery can be justified. But legally, many if not most of the abolitionists were out of line. So again, the question of who should be blamed for the war has no clear-cut answer.

Even with regard to Fort Sumter, either side could have avoided the spark that started the actual fighting simply by having a little respect for the feelings of the other. Leaving the fort alone would not have destroyed the South, and the North could easily have abandoned it while trying to negotiate a peaceful reunification. Either side could have avoided the tragedy if it were more focused on trying to find a peaceful resolution, so how can the blame be laid entirely on one side or the other?

I might also point out that what the North won in practice in the Civil War regarding the inability of states to secede, they all but gave up in principle in the Reconstruction. The way the South was treated after the war was quite clearly far more like conquered territory than like States that had been part of the Union all along. For that matter, the Emancipation Proclamation itself took away slaves what were, under our constitution at the time, property. So if the South was not a separate nation, Lincoln’s actions were highly illegal no matter how much good they did.

Of course from a Civver’s perspective, the North’s position in the war made perfect sense. A good chunk of American territory did a “culture flip,” and the Americans sent in their military to reclaim it. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when a culture flip takes place?

Nathan

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by nbarclay
In my opinion, people who argue about which side was “right” in America's Civil War and which was “wrong” are missing the reality of the situation. BOTH sides were wrong.
*snip civil war*
Of course from a Civver’s perspective, the North’s position in the war made perfect sense. A good chunk of American territory did a “culture flip,” and the Americans sent in their military to reclaim it. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when a culture flip takes place?

Nathan

We have taken this argument off the board, if you would like to join in, please feel free to E-mail me, and I will be happy to forward you the text of the argument so far, as well as my (as soon as I finnish class for the day, only 3 more hrs to go!) rebutal...

[Dom Pedro II]

Okay, going back to the main point... I don't see the combat system being random so much as it is lop-sidded in favor of the AI. No matter what, battle-for-battle, I'm fighting uphill. In naval confrontation, its by far the worst. I can attack any enemy frigate any time any where with my own frigate, and the enemy will beat me. But I rarely see the cavalry beaten by Bronze Age unit battles your talking about.

I once had a Modern Armor turned back by a Spearman. It was a huge city, and the Spearman was fortified... Still, the Armor should have won. I know that, but hey, flukes happen. History is cluttered with battles that SHOULD have gone one way but instead went another. It's not usually due to some great larger-than-life hero astride a white horse... its due to accidents and chance. And they DO happen. So when something like that happens, I accept it because if everything went how I expected it, I wouldn't bother playing the game.



Meanwhile, as for this whole Civil War thing... ok, look. If R.E. Lee bugs you because he committed treason against America, then George Washington and Tom Jefferson bug me because they committed treason against BRITAIN! The only reason why EVERYBODY in America supports those two rebels is because A) they won, and B) even some of those CS states were part of the thirteen colonies. I mean, you'd crucify RE Lee as a villain because he betrayed the USA. Would he have been a better man if he betrayed his home state of Virginia instead? You see, you're looking at it from the point of view of modern day where the USA isn't just a country, its a nation. Before the Civil War, it was just a federation of states, and there was a squabble over whether those states were sovereign or whether the central government was really in charge. Remember, before the Civil War, it was the United States are and not the United States is. I bet Tom Jefferson would have sided with the South because he opposed centralized government, and he always liked to leave room for uprising. And the Confederates still considered themselves American even if they didn't have the same government anymore. Ok, so the slavery thing looks bad, but remember, Lincoln was fine with letting the South back into the Union with slavery intact. He only put forth the Emancipation Proclamation as a political move particularly to keep Britain and France from recognizing the Confederate States.

But seriously, shouldn't the South have been allowed to leave if they wanted to? Sure, the Constitution doesn't say they can, but it doesn't say they can't either.


I think it probably would have been better if the South had won the Civil War for several reasons. Slavery was on the outs anyway. The rest of the world wouldn't have let the Confederacy keep it up for too much longer, and it, like my home country of Brazil, who was the last Western nation to do away with the institution, probably would have abolished slavery before 1900. Then the nasty things like the Ku Klux Klan and other terrible side effects from Reconstruction might have been avoided. Furthermore, while I don't like to think of those few million blacks living on in bondage for another few decades, I consider it much more important about the 125,000,000 lives that would have been saved in the 20th century if the USA had been split. (No WWI or WWII).

Argue this last point all you want with me if you so desire... I've been studying the Civil War's effect on latter 19th century Europe for about eight months now. I'd love to get my sources out for ya!

Not to mention, if the Yanks had gotten a nice whooping in 1862, maybe they would have learned to mind their own damn business in the 20th century. Pax Americana can kiss my big Brazilian butt!

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
Ok, so the slavery thing looks bad, but remember, Lincoln was fine with letting the South back into the Union with slavery intact. He only put forth the Emancipation Proclamation as a political move particularly to keep Britain and France from recognizing the Confederate States.

I only wish to pause long enough to make one statment here: For lincon it was a choice of two evils: splitting the nation, and telling the world that a nation "concived in liberty" could never stand, on the one hand, and allowing millions to be enslaved on the other. He fel that Slavery was a dieing institution, and thus it was _much_ more importaint to keep the nation together. The fact that he was able to right two grave moral wrongs with one movment must have seemed a godsend to him...

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
I think it probably would have been better if the South had won the Civil War for several reasons. Slavery was on the outs anyway. The rest of the world wouldn't have let the Confederacy keep it up for too much longer, and it, like my home country of Brazil, who was the last Western nation to do away with the institution, probably would have abolished slavery before 1900. Then the nasty things like the Ku Klux Klan and other terrible side effects from Reconstruction might have been avoided. Furthermore, while I don't like to think of those few million blacks living on in bondage for another few decades, I consider it much more important about the 125,000,000 lives that would have been saved in the 20th century if the USA had been split. (No WWI or WWII)..

Ok, I want to see evidence that WWI would not have happened if the US had been two nations. I am totaly willing to grant that without WWI, WWII would not have happened, but I want to see evidence that WWI would not have happened without the US...

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Andrew Cory

I only wish to pause long enough to make one statment here: For lincon it was a choice of two evils: splitting the nation, and telling the world that a nation "concived in liberty" could never stand, on the one hand, and allowing millions to be enslaved on the other. He fel that Slavery was a dieing institution, and thus it was _much_ more importaint to keep the nation together. The fact that he was able to right two grave moral wrongs with one movment must have seemed a godsend to him...

But WAS it a moral wrong for the South to want to leave the Union? The implicit promise of the United States was that each and every one of the thirteen states would be better off as part of the Union than they would be otherwise. If states didn't expect to be better off, they would have had no reason to join.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the North broke the implicit promise underlying our Union by manipulating the system to their advantage at the South's expense. Had the South succeeded in seceding, the lesson would have been that such selfishness is ultimately self-defeating since taking unfair advantage of people and trying to force your will on them drives them away. Instead, we have the lesson that the majority is free to run roughshod over the minority as long as they can find ways to do it within the law.

Nathan

[Andrew Cory]

Originally posted by nbarclay


But WAS it a moral wrong for the South to want to leave the Union?

That is all immaterial to my point, which was that Lincon _belived_ it to be moraly wrong. My point (once again) is this: Lincon did not think that slavery was ok (the implication, if not the out and out statment behind the "lincon was willing to not free the slaves" argument), he simply felt that the nation was more importaint. Whether or not this is true is linked to a topic that we are debating off this board, and I _do_ wish to keep it off this board...

[Deathwalker]

Firepower should have never been removed from the game, because it took into account the relitive power of each unit in a area. It stopped the stupid results that we noe see in Civ 3 all the time

[kailhun]

Originally posted by nbarclay


But WAS it a moral wrong for the South to want to leave the Union? The implicit promise of the United States was that each and every one of the thirteen states would be better off as part of the Union than they would be otherwise. If states didn't expect to be better off, they would have had no reason to join.

The early 21st century idealistic take on this is: if a people wish to become independent they have a right to become so. So in and of itself leaving the Union is not morally wrong. However, did 'The South' wish independence? It is my opinion that in many southern states there was not even a majority in favour of Seccession. Let alone a 2/3 majority which I personally consider necesary. It is after all a decision that affects many and should not be taken lightly.
Secondly, splitting up a country also affects those 'left'. They must also agree (IMO).
Thirdly, agreements must be made as to e.g. property of the Government and the country's debt. Just taking all government property and leaving the debt fot the 'other' is wrong.

All this IMO, the way in which the South left was morally wrong.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the North broke the implicit promise underlying our Union by manipulating the system to their advantage at the South's expense. Had the South succeeded in seceding, the lesson would have been that such selfishness is ultimately self-defeating since taking unfair advantage of people and trying to force your will on them drives them away. Instead, we have the lesson that the majority is free to run roughshod over the minority as long as they can find ways to do it within the law.

Nathan

This is not true. Up till the 1860 election the South was in charge in the USA. The South had disregarded northern interests for decades, not the other way round. When Lincoln won in 1860 the southern politicians panicked. And for two reasons:
1) Lincoln had won while he wasn't on any southern ballot. The south had lost it's political dominance.
2) The South was afraid the North was about to do to it what the South had been doing to the North for decades, namely ignoring the interests of the other.

They quickly took the South out of the Union in order to remain big fish, but in a smaller pond. They managed to rile up the population and in order to unite the people provoked until they started a war they thought they could easily win.

I agree with Lincoln for fighting mainly for one reason: the minority must not be allowed to gain through force of arms that which they cannot win through the ballotbox.

And looking back. If Lincoln had not fought, democracy would have died then and there. In Europe it was teetering: England: Victoria; Germany: Kings and Princes; France: Napoleon III; The Netherlands and Belgium: Kings. Democracy was rising, but if in 1860 the one real democracy had proven that a people cannot stand together in government (but will always split a country) demcocracy would have gone the way of the dodo.

Theory: most of the ancestors of the people currently living in the South weren't southerners in 1860-1865.

Robert