The fix for the warrior defeating the tank

[lorddread]

How many people who play the game have had this happen to you:

You are in the middle of a war, and a warrior (armed with a flint axe), defeats an infantry unit or worse a tank. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I lost a advanced armor unit to a warrior.

The fix for this is to reset the offensive and defensive scores to keep this from happening.

Let's face it, a Abrhams M1A2 main battle tank is the Sh#t! I set the defense to 60 and offense to 50. Using this as the top end of the scale, I moved all the other units offense and defense, ending with the warrior with a 1-1. This way no matter how damaged my tank is, it cannot be defeaed by a unit that can never even scratch it.

The game creators should have done this to begin with, but hey!

Let me know what you think!

[steelehc]

True, a dude with an axe or club wouldn't cause much (read: any) damage to a tank, but
1)This has been b1tched about many times already.
2)Increasing the HPs for each experience level helps.
3)So does increasing the attack and defense values for each unit.

There are a number of mods available that deal with this (and other) issues.

Steele

[Inverse Icarus]

the best way to revamp the combat engine is to add more hitpoints to the modren units and to bring back firepower.

it's been beaten to death. don't re-open this war.

[Zachriel]

Re: The fix for the warrior defeating the tank

Originally posted by lorddread
I set the defense to 60 and offense to 50. Using this as the top end of the scale, I moved all the other units offense and defense, ending with the warrior with a 1-1. This way no matter how damaged my tank is, it cannot be defeaed by a unit that can never even scratch it.

That is incorrect, even with 50 on attack, there is a small but nevertheless real possibility of the combat still having an unexpected result. The better strategy is to assume when there is war that there will be the possibility of losses.

BTW, it's never happened to me. I never see warriors in the modern age. But I use combined arms, and plan my attacks carefully, so I wouldn't expect it to be much of a problem.

[Thrawn05]

Has anyone thought that perhaps some of the tanks in the tank unit broke down and so warriors were able to get in and kill the pilot?


This whole ranting about Tanks or what getting killed by older units is getting dull IMHO (I side with Uber). I have yet to see this happen. The most I've seen was my Tank getting killed by a Riflemen, but that was because the Tank had 2 health points left and the Riflemen was elite.

[kimmygibler]

"This way no matter how damaged my tank is, it cannot be defeaed by a unit that can never even scratch it."

Not true. It could still happen. Don't you understand random numbers?

[Ethelred]

Most people don't understand random numbers or statistics.

Thats why they think there is something perverse going on when random weird things happen. May even be the main reason for religion. People are built to try to understand why things happen. Sometimes things are random though an no amount of trying to understand the reasons will change it.

In fact the universe is statistical to the core. However assuming something is random when it may not be is a sure way not figure out the cause. So human have evolved to see patterns even where there are none.

Then again when a spearman in the real world beats a bunch of Brits armed with Martini-Henry rifles with men armed with assegi it wasn't exactly a random event. Someone on the Brittish side blew it. In that case though the numbers were sufficient that the statistics reached high probabilities. In Civ we are dealing with only one unit vs another each time which allows for apparent anomalous results. Put a big stack of tanks against a equally big stack of spearman and the tanks will win every time.

No I haven't seen the legendary anti-tank speaman myself either. Though I thought I might last week though. My veteran tank got knocked to one hit but it was no ordinary spearman it was a hoplite in a city on a hill.

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Ethelred
In fact the universe is statistical to the core. However assuming something is random when it may not be is a sure way not figure out the cause. So human have evolved to see patterns even where there are none.

You should read that Steven Hawking's book.

There're a few chapters that talk about that. If the universe was not random, then everything would be symetrical, meaning each star is equaly far apart from one another.

But since you don't see that, there is some form of randomise to the universe. Chaos is the only constant in the universe. Well, that, and Murphy's Law.

[Ethelred]

You should read that Steven Hawking's book.

If you are talking about A Brief History of Time I have it. Not only that I read it.

Try John Gribbons books for more depth without a huge quanitity of math. I did find his books a lot more work to read though. Twenty pages at a time. Then sleep on it. On the book sometimes or the couch or the chair. Occasionally on the bed. Where ever my mind decided it had enough and was going to shut down like XP does to protect the system with a BSOD.

[SpencerH]

I believe that the physicists definition of "randomness" relative to the Universe and "random" from a statistical perspective are not the same thing. Its been a while, but I believe that Hawking was pointing out the existance (on some level) of forces that make the universe "non-random".

As I understand it, combat in CIV3 is not controlled by a random number anyway. It was pointed out in another thread (it might have been you Ethylred) that there is an assigned number for each turn that is used to generate the "random number" for combat. From a statistical perspective the randomness of the "random numbers" can only be assessed with a large population such as over the course of a game. But that doesnt change the observations that some very anomolous combats occur that are unlikely with completely random numbers.

[Thrawn05]

A month ago I wanted to test the limits of the combat system by making a 100/100 unit (just to see if attack/defend number REALLY matter). What I found was that those edited units still died on the field, but the problem was how long until they meet their end.

Those 100/100 units killed most units and until riflemen, were undefeated. By the time MechInfantry game, those units died on occasion. I do believe that there is SOME higher power working here in the game mechanics.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by SpencerH
I believe that the physicists definition of "randomness" relative to the Universe and "random" from a statistical perspective are not the same thing. Its been a while, but I believe that Hawking was pointing out the existance (on some level) of forces that make the universe "non-random".

Same for me regarding the time. I read it shortly after it came out. Gravity might have been what he was talking about. Its an organizing force. The universe would have needed to be VERY uniform for gravity not to have caused clumping. Very as in less than 1 part of non-uniformity in 10,000 which is about what COBE found.

Don't quote me. I didn't look that up so its likely wrong.

As I understand it, combat in CIV3 is not controlled by a random number anyway. It was pointed out in another thread (it might have been you Ethylred) that there is an assigned number for each turn that is used to generate the "random number" for combat. From a statistical perspective the randomness of the "random numbers" can only be assessed with a large population such as over the course of a game. But that doesnt change the observations that some very anomolous combats occur that are unlikely with completely random numbers.

Not me. Well I wouldn't have said it wasn't random in that sense. I may have said something that was close to that. Here it is in more detail as I understand it.

The game stores a SEED number for each save to start with. The initial seed is generated by using something that is sorta random. I thinks its a timer that overflows very quickly from the time Windows, perhaps the machine, starts up. It was a hardware timer on the Apple ][ and that the last thing I programmed on.

Apple by the way had a busted random number routine courtesy of Bill Gates. Bill's first comercial Basic was Applesoft and there was a problem that caused the numbers to become in someway unrandom after around 10,000 numbers were generated in a row. I think they started repeating the same sequence no matter what the intial seed was after that. Simply getting a new starting SEED would work around the glitch.

There is no way to get random numbers like a roulette wheel or better yet a bit of radioactive material in a PC. An algorithim is run that generates numbers that are not predictable. The only way to find out what the next number will be from a given seed is to run the algorithim.

The Random Number Generator functions in PC's generate numbers that are pretty darn near indistiguishable from true random numbers. Each number that is generated after the start become the seed for the next.

There are two reasons people think Civ III is not using random numbers. One is that they just don't like the results of some battles and fixate on what they think is an anomalous result. This is normal human nature and it can be hard to avoid thinking that way. The other thing is when people try the Civ II reload cheat they get the same results they had the first time.

That same result is due to the SEED for the Random Number Generator. In Civ II and the original a new seed was obtained from the timer function each time you reloaded. Now in Civ III the SEED is stored with the Autosave. Apparently if you do a reboot you will get a new SEED.

Psuedo Code

Start Civ III

SET initial SEED variable with a number from timer function

DO
Run Random Number Routine using SEED variable
Save generated RN as SEED
Use RN for game function
LOOP

(the first language I learned was Fortran and DO LOOPs are still whats in my head)

IF save game then include SEED in save

Gamer hates result of RN

Gamer LOADS old save from start of turn

DO

Run Random Number Routine using SEED from the save.

THEN
Cheating Gamer rants the game is cheating

So the number is as random as it can be on a PC. But it is the same at the start of a turn even if you reload it because you are reloading the same SEED used the first time.

Simply changing the order of battle gets you a diffent number. So if you want to use the reload cheat you must change the order of events. Given the same seed the same sequence of numbers will be generated every time. After all it is running on a machine that is supposed to get the same results when it does the same thing. Only the SEED can be different and it won't be in Civ III from a reload.

I don't know if it was really a good idea or not for Firaxis to do this but just changing the order works around it. Of course if you only have one thing to do that requires RN to be generated you will have to add something that uses one. Make an attack with a unit that wasn't involved the first time for instance.

Keep in mind that loosing a unit may have involved many RN's and if you lost with each of them they must all be used up. Its not a stack of numbers that is saved just the intial seed but the sequence will not change. What you need is a very different place in the sequence especially if its a tank VS a spearman as that means the numbers were very bad indeed so not unit can be expected to win that particular battle. Also if the battle went on for a while with both units missing a lot trying to attach with a weak unit isn't going to clear out the unlucky sequence. More than unit may be needed to use the sequence.

This last may be why some people think there is more going on than a SEED save. They try using up the unwanted results with a unit that has one hit. That may use only only one number out of a sequence of many badly losing numbers.

[SpencerH]

I wonder if we have "all our ducks in a row" with regard to the combat calculators? i.e. Is there a little "checkbox" somewhere that we've missed (such as weakens the barbs against other units) that kicks in every once in a while?

Heres the observation:

In a combat between elite warriors (delete the 10% defender advantage) with random results you would expect to see HP being deducted from one unit then the other. Of course you can get two to five point HP reductions in a row on one side or the other but to loose 5HP in a row should be less rare than what seems to occur. Of course it could be perception but I think there is some "clustering" of random numbers that allows these events to occur more often than is purely random. Argueably, there could be a reason for this. In combat the odds for success change as hits are scored (as you wound your opponent your chances of victory increase while theirs decrease). I wonder if something like this is present in the CIV3 combat calculations? If so, its faulty since I most often observe this combat result clustering when a unit beats its opponent down to 1 or 2 HP then losses 5 or 6 rounds in a row (and dies).

[lorddread]

random numbers and other crap

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a random number using a modern day computer. The US Government found this out when they tried to use a random number generated on a modern computer for cryptography.

The programers need to make the following fixes to the game to ensure problems like these go away.

1. Obsolete units need to go away. I do not want the option to make a warrior everytime I want to build a F-15.

2. Ancient units, (if they are still around) should not be able to inflict ANY damage on modern units, NO MATTER IF THEY ARE ELITE OR NOT!

3. Some serious thought needs to go into evamping the random seed. Is it necessary? IMO no!

[Thrawn05]

Re: random numbers and other crap

Originally posted by lorddread
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a random number using a modern day computer. The US Government found this out when they tried to use a random number generated on a modern computer for cryptography.

/* RAND.C: This program seeds the random-number generator
* with the time, then displays 10 random integers.
*/

#include "stdlib.h"
#include "stdio.h"
#include "time.h"

void main( void )
{
int i;

/* Seed the random-number generator with current time so that
* the numbers will be different every time we run.
*/
srand( (unsigned)time( NULL ) );

/* Display 10 numbers. */
for( i = 0; i < 10;i++ )
printf( " %6d\n", rand() );
}