Cavalry vs. Infantry

[MosesPresley]

Cavalry 6-3-3
Infantry 6-10-1

OK. I've looked through the civilopedia and the read-me and I can't find anything about this, so I want to ask the forum: Does Cavalry have some sort of special advantage over infantry? The reason I ask is that my Cavalry will regularly beat the AI's infantry and vice versa. Last time I looked, 6 doesn't beat a 10.

Now, a question about Naval combat. This is maybe just an unfortunate coincidence but, almost everytime in my recent game, v 1.17f, a one on one naval battle will result in a loss for me. Ironclad vs ironclad, I will lose everytime. My destroyer vs ironclad with the result that I lose consistently. Doesn't a destroyer have a 2 to 1 advantage over an ironclad? Galley vs galley, I didn't win a single one of the many battles. If anyone has any ideas on this, please share.

[Arrian]

You must have had a pretty bizarre run of random numbers, because Cavalry vs. Infantry usually produces a whole lot of dead Cavalry.

I hate having to use Cav on Infantry, but can do it, provided I have a ton of artillery backing my mounted troopers up.

As for the naval battles... what type of sample size are we discussing here? I've had odd combat results (I've lost destroyers to ironclads, etc.) too, but I know of no bonuses any unit gets vs. a particular other unit. Try creating stacks of ships, and bombarding the ship you want to kill with a couple of yours, then attacking. It works, trust me.

I'm not sure if it applies to coast/sea/ocean squares, but there is a standard 10% combat bonus to the defender, unless the terrain it's on has a better bonus (forest, jungle, hill, mountain). So that may be why you're having trouble on offense. Then again, it may well be a bad run of random numbers, which happens occasionally. The Cavalry thing sounds like a correspondingly good run of random numbers.

-Arrian

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

I regular defeat fortified infantry with cavalry. I also get my tanks regularly beaten by cavalry.

Naval wise, it seems no matter what the vessels, the AI gets a huge advantage. Frigates sink my subs easily, ironclads sink my destroyers. I even have had a couple of veteran battleships taken to their last hits points by galleys.

This is my experience over several games on the regent and monarchy levels.

[SpencerH]

Welcome to the wonderful world of CIV3 combat.

[MosesPresley]

Thanks for the responses. I found another thread that corroborated my experiences with ironclads. I guess the solution is to bombard first.

I really like this incarnation of the Civ series, but I find the combat to be wildly unpredictable.

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by MosesPresley
but I find the combat to be wildly unpredictable.

Try increasing the number of hit points. (Easily done in the editor.) More hitpoints means each "round" of combat matters less, so results will be closer to the average, so units with better stats are more likely to win.

Not so easily done: Increase the combat stats of most units to increase the differences in attack and defense factors.

(Or just learn to like it. It's different (from Civ2 and most games of the type), and it's unrealistic, but I havn't seen any arguments that have convinced me it's bad. (What I think is "bad" is the game's offensive vrs. defensive balance - I think conquest/razing is too easy.))

[SpencerH]

Tarquelne said it. If you dont want to fiddle with everything yourself try one of the better tested mods.

[MosesPresley]

Tarquelne

Or just learn to like it.

Well, I am not going to like it, but I will work around it. I'll just make sure that I have a significant advantage before I attack like I usually do.

[Thrawn05]

I would go with Infantry, mostly because I'm big on defense. The way I see it, they are more likely to survive a counter attack on the field then Cavalry, since units need to stop someone before the end of your turn, and that's usualy in enemy territory.

[civman2000]

I confirm the naval problem, and say that I have seen it on every level, chieftain-deity. However, I have tryed adding more hit points and it usually seems to solve the problems with land combat...but not always

suggested hp:
conscript-12
regular-15
vet-17
elite-20

the big stack of hp doesn't look good, but it works better...

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

I increased hit points to 3-4-6-8, and it works great except for naval combat, and cavalry (altho I sometimes think swordsmen are useless).

[MosesPresley]

Originally posted by ALPHA WOLF 64
(altho I sometimes think swordsmen are useless).

I feel the same way about swordsmen. They seem to lose more often than not and they become obsolete way too quickly. Although I have seen the AI get some good mileage out of them.