Combat Sucks

[faded glory]

Why the hell cant bombers sink a ship? That is just -bleepin- lame.


Did 117 fix this? I havent DLed it yet.


Some of the other things are just ridiculous. I lose tanks to cavalry. Bleh!

[simwiz2]

because firaxis was unable to impliment a REAL combat system - so having bombers destroy ships right now would be unbalancing.

maybe someday, if they get a combat system with firepower, actual separate categories for planes, ships, subs, foot units, armored units, etc. then they would be able to fix this glaring flaw. But sid seems to be adament that civ3 should regress to the civ1 combat level.

[Cyclotron]

Or, it could just be a gameplay issue. Designing your own combat system is definitly no cake walk. Sometimes the dichotemy between what is a good game and what is real life can only be solved with a compromise that may not be entirely both. That's just how it is sometimes.

[Whoha]

korn made this mod with dive bombers that actually can sink ships, but you lose the dive bomber after its run(sound familar?)

[notyoueither]

Yes, korn made an intermediate range anti ship missile that he called a dive bomber. Or maybe it was Kamikaze.

The ship sinking *option* *could* be added to the editor. Apparently the editor is one of the game components more actively under development.

There is hope, hopefully.

Salve

[korn469]

Why the hell cant bombers sink a ship?

faded glory

personally i don't think that this is a major problem in the game, and out of all of the things to focus on in the combat system i don't see why people embrace this and act like fixing this will be a panacea to all of civ3's combat problems

anyways, to bandage the combat system open up the editor and go to combat experience then change the normal civ3 values to the following

conscript 8
regular 12
veteran 16
elite 20

and then multiply the rate of fire of all units by 4

that should fix 90% of the problems with poor combat results, and while tanks on defense still might lose to cavalry on offense, tanks will then almost never lose to cavalry on defense, and you will then never see another spearman beat a tank

or you can download one of the various mods that have tweaked combat

if they get a combat system with firepower

simwiz2

SMAC did not have firepower and although it had some of the special abilities there were no complaints about this being gone, so this leads me to believe that it is the lack of hitpoints that is causing all of the bad combat results, and that simply adding firepower would not fix civ3, while increasing hitpoints could

that being said, if all units had a RoF, a FP, and an Armor value in addition to an attack and defense value that worked slightly different than they currently do i could see how a person could develop a really great combat system

it could work like this
lets say it is based on dice for now

unit 1 has an attack of 10, a defense of 6, a RoF of 2 a firepower of 2, an armor of 5, along with 10 hitpoints

unit 2 has an attack of 4, a defense of 10, a RoF of 5 a firepower of 1, an armor of 1, along with ten hitpoints

unit 1 rolls two ten sided dice for attack and five six sided dice for defense

unit 2 rolls five 4 sided dice for attack and one ten sided dice for defense

unit 1 rolls the following
attack: 8, 4
defense: 6, 4, 4, 2, 1

unit 2 rolls the following
attack: 4, 3, 3, 2, 2
defense: 9

so when we pair their attack and defense rolls up, one attack from unit 1 hit unit 2 inflicting 2 hitpoints worth of damage, and one attack from unit 2 hit unit 1 inflicting 1 hitpoint worth of damage

of course with computers the calculations could be way more complicated, and with SMAC like special abilities you really could have a system capable of handling about anything

[Tarquelne]

"i don't see why people embrace this"

It's because it's the most obvious unrealistic characteristic of the combat system. (Not necessarily truly the most unrealistic characteristic - just the most obvious one.) The fact that planes can sink is a very important factor in RL naval warfare.

********
re: Civility thread.

Note the lack of "IMO" or "I think" - I maintain that the above is fact.

[korn469]

It's because it's the most obvious unrealistic characteristic of the combat system

my opinions in responce

first air power in real life has never completely destroyed an entire group of ships, not in WW2
Dunkirk: nope
Pearl Harbor: nope
Coral Sea: nope
Northern Atlantic: nope
Midway: nope
Guadal Canal: nope
Leyte Gulf: nope
nor anytime since then, naval units not being able to shoot down planes is just as unrealistic

second ships in civ3 are slow, and a small navy in conjunction with your airpower can easily rid your coasts of intruders, and in real life, no nation depends totally on airpower to maintain naval supremacy in its territorial waters

even if airpower could sink ships then the results of those sinkings would be that fighters and jet fighters couldn't damage most naval units (inculding galleys, caravels, frigates, and ironclads), while world war 2 bombers would easily sink entire fleet of Aegis Cruisers

bombers landing on aircraft carriers is more unrealistic then airpower not being able to sink an entire fleet...doolittle might have taken off from aircraft carriers, but he certainly didn't try to land on them...just imagine trying to land a squadron of B-29's on a WW2 aircraft carrier

it just seems to me that the people upset about airpower not sinking naval units don't have a navy theirself, because the realize that naval units are so slow they are mostly useless, and that is a much worse problem than airpower not being able to sink them

the worst combat problem in civ3 (IMO of course ) is bad combat results, spearmen beating tanks, ironclad sinking battleships, and i would say most of that comes from hitpoints being too low...you fix hitpoints and most of the combat problems disappear, and then it also makes being at 1 hp much worse

[simwiz2]

"my opinions in responce

first air power in real life has never completely destroyed an entire group of ships, not in WW2
Dunkirk: nope
Pearl Harbor: nope
Coral Sea: nope
Northern Atlantic: nope
Midway: nope
Guadal Canal: nope
Leyte Gulf: nope
nor anytime since then, naval units not being able to shoot down planes is just as unrealistic

second ships in civ3 are slow, and a small navy in conjunction with your airpower can easily rid your coasts of intruders, and in real life, no nation depends totally on airpower to maintain naval supremacy in its territorial waters"

Ship units are one or 2 ships at most. As for pearl harbor, many ships were sunk. Or did we rest all the 1-hp ship "units" in port for a turn and have them magically regenerate their lost ships for free? And of course ships should be able to kill or damage planes, it should be like a simultaneous bombard, with a CHANCE to kill. possibly the plane is destroyed and the ship is damaged, perhaps the other way around, perhaps both units withstand the attack with only damage, perhaps the planes drop bombs but are then shot to pieces, and the ships the sink because of the bombholes, so both would be destroyed.

[korn469]

out of all of the battleships sunk or damaged (eight i do believe) at pearl harbor, only three didn't return to service, two of them were two old to be worth repairing and only the arizona was damaged beyond repair, and that was after a complete surprise attack where non of the antiaircraft or damage control stations were properly manned, and the Japanese still lost 10% of their fighter force

same thing with midway except the american surprised the Japanese that time, at the coral sea neither side was surprised and neither fleet was really damaged i think they lost an aircraft carrier apiece

i will do a more in depth post later on tonight, but realistic or not (which civ3 isn't realistic anyways) it won't improve combat

and i'm pretty sure that each ship represents more than 2 ships at the most...especially with destroyers and submarines

[The Andy-Man]

nope, its fair to say that naval units in civ games represent 1 ship, USA has 70subs i beleive, not to hard to build in civ3, and they all work indipendantly anyway, Battlships are also singular (even the biggest naval powers in the late 19th C never had more then about 7 i think). Destroyers and cruisers are cheep and so easy to mass produce as well.

Civ3 just misssed out on having a naval equivilent of armies.


as fro bombers, if the bomber got a good bombing run and put a few BIG holes in the hull, i donmt see why it WONT sink.


place, airial superiority is a good defence against navy, (land based air). ie, land based aircraft will attack the carrier bassed ones and attack that fleet. makes naval blockades more tricky to.

[Ghengis Brom]

Originally posted by korn469
out of all of the battleships sunk or damaged (eight i do believe) at pearl harbor, only three didn't return to service, two of them were two old to be worth repairing and only the arizona was damaged beyond repair, and that was after a complete surprise attack where non of the antiaircraft or damage control stations were properly manned, and the Japanese still lost 10% of their fighter force

same thing with midway except the american surprised the Japanese that time, at the coral sea neither side was surprised and neither fleet was really damaged i think they lost an aircraft carrier apiece

i will do a more in depth post later on tonight, but realistic or not (which civ3 isn't realistic anyways) it won't improve combat

and i'm pretty sure that each ship represents more than 2 ships at the most...especially with destroyers and submarines

This is prolly gonna stir up even more debate but here goes anyway. Recently aireal(sp?) photos of Pearl Harbor taken during the attack have been analyzed using modern computers and software. After the analysis digitally enhanced versions of the photo show a large distinctive cigar-shaped shadow in the middle of the harbor with what appears to be thin trail going through the water from the shadowy object directly toward the Arizona. It's not conclusive but it does indicate that there may have possibly been a Japanese sub in the Pearl during the attack and why the Arizona was so badly damaged.

[player1]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
nope, its fair to say that naval units in civ games represent 1 ship, USA has 70subs i beleive, not to hard to build in civ3, and they all work indipendantly anyway, Battlships are also singular (even the biggest naval powers in the late 19th C never had more then about 7 i think). Destroyers and cruisers are cheep and so easy to mass produce as well.

In WW1 some powers had more then 100 Battleships.

In WW2 it was less then 40.

After WW2 Americans kept only 4 of them.

Today, battleship are not used anymore.

Too easy target for missiles.
And too expensive.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by Tarquelne
"i don't see why people embrace this"

It's because it's the most obvious unrealistic characteristic of the combat system. (Not necessarily truly the most unrealistic characteristic - just the most obvious one.) The fact that planes can sink is a very important factor in RL naval warfare.

********
re: Civility thread.

Note the lack of "IMO" or "I think" - I maintain that the above is fact.

Its just as bad that those damageable ships cant damage planes.

[Coracle]

You know, I read threads such as this one about how SCREWED UP the entire combat system is (including stupid unit values) and I get more convinced than ever that Firaxis never playtested this very disappointing game.

I'm glad Civ II is still on my computer.