Keep it realistic...

[Carver]

When making a GAME, realism is not the most important thing - gameplay is. Balance and playability have to be top priority. We could go on forever... how does an ironclad get damaged by a frigate or a galley. The ironclads of the U.S. civil war couldn't even damage each other. But there should be no gauranteed wins in Civ3. I like it that there's always a chance that the warrior is going to detonate a bomb in the ground underneath the tank - the way the Palestinians have done against Isreali Merkava tanks in their heroic fight to free Palestine. There's always unknown threats out there.

[Zachriel]

It's just a game. Get real!

[Sze]

There are two reasons for the combat system to be the way it is:

1) Firaxis isn't a good game designer and they don't understand what it takes to make gameplay good.

2) The combat system was simplified (and broken) to help the AI survive because it has a hard time keeping up with modern units. It doesn't see the difference betwen the units, it only sees how many units it has. So once it builds up a decent sized army, it doesn't think it needs to build more units or upgrade its existing units. The only time it will build modern units is if it takes losses or expands its empire, and even then it doesn't usually build the most suitable units.

The common fanboy argument concerning this topic is that ancient units evolve over time so that they're better suited to combat modern units. If that were the case, why don't the icons change? Why don't the stats change? There is NO indication that this unit evolution is occuring.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Sze
There are two reasons for the combat system to be the way it is:

1) Firaxis isn't a good game designer and they don't understand what it takes to make gameplay good.

2) The combat system was simplified (and broken) to help the AI survive because it has a hard time keeping up with modern units.

The combat system works quite well. I almost never see obsolete units. When I do, they are rarely significant in numbers or strategic effect. When these obsolete units show up, a single spearman facing a stack of infantry and artillery, they are rarely in the game long.

Are you saying that obsolete units should not be in the game (Zulus v. British), or that your soldiers are frightened by the native drums in the forest?

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Are you saying that obsolete units should not be in the game (Zulus v. British), or that your soldiers are frightened by the native drums in the forest?

Where's tarzan when you need him? Or maybe a superman unit

[Willem]

Originally posted by Navyman
I don't really keep up-to-date with the chat on the forum so I am not sure if anyone else has suggested this or not.

But one thing that Civ needs to change is the method city improvements and units are built. The building system would be much better if instead of a serial production, it was a parallel production. For instance, you could allocate certain increments of your total labor force in a city to building different things simultaneously.

They already have something similar where there is a certain amount of "trade" and that gets modified by different things like city improvements and such. Then that is divided up into tax, lux, and research. I advocate using a similar system for labor, where each city generates a pool of labor determined by its size, city improvements, etc. And each city can divide up its labor so that things can be built simultaneously. For example, 20% of the labor force can be set to building the temple while 30% is building the marketplace, and 40% is building the archer, and 10% is building the catapult.

That, I believe, has the potential to completely change and imiprove the game and the strategies and make an overall better game.

Especially if the labour pool was drawn from your citizens. So that instead of working the fields, you have to take someone off of them in order to build these things. And depending on the structure, you might need more people for some structures than others. For instance, it would require a larger work force to build a Coliseum than it would a Courthouse because of the size differences of the buildings. And if you were short handed, it would affect the length of time it takes to build these larger structures.

[Tuberski]

I can't believe this is being rehashed......again.

The combat sucks....so what?

Play the game you DO have.......not the game you feel you should have.

Warrior beats tank? Fine build more tanks than they have warriors.

We really need an update on the patch, doing these same threads over and over, I'm never going to make Prince!

[Ninot]

ok... you have three options

1: stop playing
2: be a romantic about it
3: just admitt, it isnt realistic, and its more like a boardgame than a real life representation

so... if you do these things... then, with

option 1: your done, quick

option 2: "It took 2 thousand years to build that harbor because the people of that town are REALLY lazy, maybe i should whip them more?"
or
"That spearman must have defeated my tank because of divine intervention! So they really did implement gods and religion after all?"
or
"I am six thousand years old because i am actually a vampire who feeds on the blood of my enemies, and must take breaks just before sunrise (because i must be at work 30 minutes later... _
or
3: Well, it should take 30 turns to get my battle ship to the enemy, so i wont declare war untill then, and just hope the role of the dice guarantees their Frigate won't sink my fleet of carriers in the meant time

Romantics could find excuses for anything, so theyre happy..
Board game players dont need excuses, they just play along
and those who dont enjoy it should just be gone!

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Ninot
ok... you have three options

1: stop playing
2: be a romantic about it
3: just admitt, it isnt realistic, and its more like a boardgame than a real life representation

so... if you do these things... then, with

option 1: your done, quick

option 2: "It took 2 thousand years to build that harbor because the people of that town are REALLY lazy, maybe i should whip them more?"
or
"That spearman must have defeated my tank because of divine intervention! So they really did implement gods and religion after all?"
or
"I am six thousand years old because i am actually a vampire who feeds on the blood of my enemies, and must take breaks just before sunrise (because i must be at work 30 minutes later... _
or
3: Well, it should take 30 turns to get my battle ship to the enemy, so i wont declare war untill then, and just hope the role of the dice guarantees their Frigate won't sink my fleet of carriers in the meant time

Romantics could find excuses for anything, so theyre happy..
Board game players dont need excuses, they just play along
and those who dont enjoy it should just be gone!

Good points!
I agree 100%

[nbarclay]

My own thinking follows the "gradual upgrade" philosophy: ancient units get SOME better equipment and training over the years, but are still nowhere near a match for fully equipped and trained modern units (barring a lot of luck).

Why do the units keep their old icons? One plausible interpretation is that the icon is an emblem reflecting the unit's tradition, not a picture of an actual member of the unit. So if the "third swordsman battalion" moves, the leader's deployment map shows a picture of a swordsman even though the "third swordsman battalion" is now largely armed with rifles and even has a few older-model anti-tank weapons.

Why do the unit values stay the same? Because the values are relative, not absolute. All the units get more powerful over time, but because their power relative to each other stays roughly the same, the same values are still useful in analyzing their relative strength.

For me, that concept is quite plausible, certainly far more plausible than having an army with mechanized infantry and modern armor also having men running around with swords, bows, and clubs. If you can believe that warrior units are still running around in the modern age at all, SURELY you can stretch your imagination that tiny extra bit to imagine that the warriors have gotten some better equipment over the centuries

Nathan

[Ninot]

Nbarclay is kinda right...

its upgraded, just without a new graphic

the workers get new graphics... the warriors don't...

much like Air Cavalry still have a horse on their patch... and not a copter. no biggie, representative.

great romantic view of the game.

[Sze]

You guys are just making excuses. You can rationalize any design decision; that doesn't make it a good decision. The combat system could have been designed to both play well and make sense. The numerous threads lamenting this issue and the way many advanced players will only play mods that 'fix' combat testify to that.

My own thinking follows the "gradual upgrade" philosophy: ancient units get SOME better equipment and training over the years, but are still nowhere near a match for fully equipped and trained modern units (barring a lot of luck).

So you're saying a spearman is a spearman until it faces a modern unit, in which case its a spearman with modern small arms. If the next round it faces a warrior, it goes back to being a spearman with spears? Or do now all the ancient units have small arms? What if its a civ that has had zero contact with the rest of the world?

By your reasoning, the technological advancement of one civ affects that of all of the others. There is a mechanism for that (reduced tech cost), but upgrading of ancient units (although they stay exactly the same) is not it.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Sze
You guys are just making excuses.

Not excuses. I just don't see it happen. Here is a fairly typical jaunt through enemy territory with 8 cannon, 4 riflemen, 4 cavalry, and a cavalry army led by Ramses. Where the heck can you fit an enemy spearman into this picture? Even without Ramses, the spearman wouldn't last a turn.

http://www.crowncity.net/civ3/Attack.htm

[Beren]

Originally posted by The Rook
You can upgrade a galley into a Galleon.

This can be fixed without ruining the gameplay. Just disable the upgrade unit command.

[theEntity]

Originally posted by Sze
You guys are just making excuses. You can rationalize any design decision; that doesn't make it a good decision. The combat system could have been designed to both play well and make sense. The numerous threads lamenting this issue and the way many advanced players will only play mods that 'fix' combat testify to that.

Personally I think the combat system plays better now than it would do if a tank had a 100% win rate against a warrior.

So you're saying a spearman is a spearman until it faces a modern unit, in which case its a spearman with modern small arms. If the next round it faces a warrior, it goes back to being a spearman with spears? Or do now all the ancient units have small arms? What if its a civ that has had zero contact with the rest of the world?

You're not trying very hard to understand the point, do you? Let me try to explain: How many armies of spearmen or warriors exist today? As far as I know: none? In the real world, even the most underdeveloped civilization upgrades their military some as the ages passes.
So, it is totally unrealistic to have armies of spearmen in the modern age. This can be rationalized by imagining that in the first age a spearman represents the best defensive unit available. In the last age a spearman represents - not a spearman army identical to the one 5000 years ago - but men with rifles, molotow coctails and the odd bazooka. It doesn't matter whether it faces a tank or a warrior, beacuse the warrior just represents militia with even worse weapons (and less ammunition).

So yes, in the modern era you may imagine that all armies have small arms (as they do have in real life - since realism is so important to you)

By your reasoning, the technological advancement of one civ affects that of all of the others. There is a mechanism for that (reduced tech cost), but upgrading of ancient units (although they stay exactly the same) is not it.

Why not?
I don't say that Firaxis meant a spearman to represent riflemen in the modern age, but I do say that it is better for the game, and more realistic to think of it this way than complaining about the odd combat result because it is more fun to play when you're not guaranteed a 100% win rate.