Beg Firaxis to fix Armies in the Next Patch

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

From my experience, the AI tends to avoid attacking my armies so its usually full strength when it reaches it's objective. I understand your frustration with the inability to protect an army, but realistically and gamewise, i dont think it would be appropriate that a strong army (3x3d cav) would sacrafice one or more 4d musketmen. OTOH, a weak army (3x1d longbow) should definitely be protected by a 3d pikeman. I want my entire force to reach the objective, not just the army.

[cracker]

Venger,

Your point about upgrading units in Armies is a seperate issue that Soren and the crew have address (whether their answer is liked or not).

They have worked overtime to prevent units in armies from being upgraded, so I am certain this is not a bug or a battle to fight in the bug fixing arena.

When I build an early army, I have often just put one unit into it and then used it against a maimed defender to get the option of building the Heroic Epic. In GOTMV (Game of the Month on Fanatics), My first army was built and loaded with a single horseman, that later had a knight added to it to keep it at least marginally functional. One Elite horseman loaded in an army and then accompanied by 2 more elite horsemen outside the army is more effective and useful that three horsemen trapped in the army, at least in cases where you are not attacking Hoplites, legionaires, or Pikemen of any nationality.

After you generate the first victory to enabel the chance at the HE and Military Academy, if you are developing or trading techs at a stellar pace, then usually the best use for that first army will be to disband it it the HE city to contribute 1/2 the shields to getting the HE done early so you can get more chances at future leaders.

I should be on the record as stating that Requiring you to have a victorious army in order to have the ability of building the only method of building armies is a fairly severe conflict with the stated objectives of encoraging other styles of play beyond war mongering. This is a seperate discussion topic, but my first thoughts are always focused on planning to be in a positon to attack and kill or maim one of the psycho civs (you know who the bastards are) as soon as I can find them and particularly if they are near to my start position.

[ahenobarb]

All of crackers comments and suggestions should instantly go into the "DUH!" fixes inbox for the next patch.

Why didn't somebody think of this before? Oh yeah, they were rushed.

[Fitz]

cracker: I would suggest that your experience with (or assumed way that armies works) directly conflicts with what EE4 says about being able to attack once for each unit in the army. Have you tested your argument about how the blitzing of armies work, or are you assuming that it works the same way as a individual unit (ie 1 attack/movement point). It's important, be cause otherwise all three of your blitz arguments may not hold a drop of water.

EE4: That said to cracker, are you sure that armies are allowing 1 attack per unit, not per movement? Have you modded anything in regards to the basic 1.21f rules about armies in your games?

[cracker]

I did not want to conflict with Evil_Eric's observations without re-verifying the current status of armies in V1.21 as of Tuesday, May 7 at 9 PM MDT USA.

To get this data, I use a simple modified scenario file that makes it easier to build cheap armies early in the game. (the file also lets you build cheap artillery and cheap aircraft to test some of the discrepencies in the bombardment engagement rules, but that is another topic).

Using Armies of 3 archers to attack either groups of spearmen or groups of warriors, I have further isolated the coding problems that still exist in the army programming and which HAVE NOT been fixed in V1.21.

Armies containing 3 archers can only attack one unit per turn, because the code determines that the army only gets one move per turn at the time the archer units are loaded into the army. AN army of three archers standing next to a stack of 3 enemy warriors, takes three turns to defeat the warriors while a stack of three archers outside of an army completes the task in one turn.

Healing of units within an army is also still not functioning as promised. In 5 separate engagement sequences, the armies containing 3 archers never heal at the same rate as their peer archers that are not in the army. In a town with a barracks, armies of three archers heal at the rate of 4 hit points per turn.

Using the Civ3Multitool to monitor the healing process, the problem clearly rests inside the specialized unit code for managing armies because when units get loaded into an army their hit points cease to function on an individual basis. Individual units within an army, transfer their hit points to the army total when they are loaded into the army. So an army of three elite archers has a total hit point stack of 15. When an army of 15 hit points has sustained 12 damage points it has three hit points remaining, but inspection of the three individual units within the army reveals that none of the units show any damage at all. The damage and healing ratses are entirely controlled at the army code level and that is the reason for the discrepency. Not sure what level of genius arrived at the 4 hit points per turn healing rate for armies fortified in a city with a barracks, but that rate was verified in every case.

I did not verify the functionality (or disfunctionality) of armies containing units with multiple movement points on an individual basis, but upon first inspection it would not seem that the armies have been fixed to use the individual units contained within the armies in a blitz mode.

I also tried to verify the zone of control functions by placing the armies near to attacking units in such a way that would force them to run past the armies. In some cases I had four or five armies set up up like a gauntlet corrider to force the enemy units to retreat down the corridor. In three seperate examples, I baited the end of the corridor with a settler, a worker, or the enemy capital town (technically their only town). In each case where there were four armies lined up in two parallel rows, I would have expected at least one of the armies full of archers to engage the retreating spearman and warriors that passed down the middle. I never observed any Zone of control engagements with any of the examples. In total, there were 9 different retreating units moving across 8 army zones of control each containing 3 archers for a total of between 72 and 206 possible zone of control engagements. So if the army is conferring a zone of control, I am failing to observe it even under fairly severe test conditions of the "gauntlet of death".

[cracker]

I have attached the sample scenario file that I use to test armies, air power, and artillery in V1.21 of CIV3.

The file is a CIV3 .bic file with modified rules that just reduce the costs and prerequisites of these units to make them available to all civs almost from the first move of the game.

The Military Academy has been renamed to be the Army Factory and can be built right away in the game without a victorious army prerequisite. This Small wonder can substitute for a temple in the early build cycle for most cities of almost every civ.

The ICBM unit has been modified to be an army unit just like the standard Army except the ICBM Army has the one extra defensive point added so you can verify that it functions in the miltary police/culture flipping suppression mode without artificially increasing the defensive strength of the army. The ICBM army looks and moves a little weird and doesn't say " HOoo.... HOooooo ..." as it attacks but other than that it functions just like an army in the current Firaxis mode.

To load the .bic file, you need to download the .zip file that contains the map and then extract the .bic file to your civ3 directory. When you start your civ3 program then select to load a scenario and choose the "Tiny Early Air Power Evaluator" Scenario.

The map is has four civs located fairly close together on a single small continent to let you generate the maximum number of early test opportunities for these unit issues. You can choose the civs.

Note that this map also has functional helicopters and lethal bombardment capacity for all bombardment units so it lets you quickly test some function elements for these units as well.

Good Luck and please help us keep the focus on persuading Firaxis to fix the problems that still exist in their product that we have purchased.

[Stuie]

Re: Beg Firaxis to fix Armies in the Next Patch

Originally posted by cracker
The ARMY unit in CIV3 may be the most embarrassing set of examples of coding mistakes that still exist within the CIV3 Beta version that has been on the public market.

Your diatribe shows a distinct lack of knowledge regarding the difference between design decisions (be they acceptable to you or not) and coding errors or bugs. Also, if you truly want to elicit a response from a company, a more conciliatory tone might be advisable.

I do not believe an army as a whole can be compared to the abilities of individual units that make up the army. They are apples and oranges. As implemented, they are a powerful addition to a civ's arsenal; your desired enhancements could very well be unbalancing.

Finally, I have in fact observed an army performing ZOC attacks against passing enemies. This has happened at least three times in my current game.

[cracker]

Stuie,

Try not to belittle other users or their approach to posting things. Focus on the issues if at all possible.

Your ZOC observation could be valuable if you decided to include two important details:

1) what version of patch ar you operating under

2) what type of units are in the army reacting with a ZOC action. i.e. are the units performing the ZOC engagement units that already have the zone of control feature even if they are individually outside of the army. There are several different states of behavior here for the army and you could be describing only the case where the individual unit already had a ZOC abd bow the army is not interfering with the exercise of the ZOC, This is not the same as having the army confer a ZOC on a unit that might not otherwise have a ZOC.

Since armies confer no special movement or attack/defense bonuses, the only way to evaluate their effectiveness is to compare there combat behavior to behavior of their constituent parts. The general expectation would be that the performance of an Army should provide some benefits and these benefits should be weighed against the added cost of the army (400 sheilds equivalent) and any performance losses.

The current performance issues have been:
1) healing
2) limited movement
3) limited engagement
4) loss of visibility
5) loss of upgradeability for units
6) lack of police power or culture suppression police power
7) loss of transportability
8) inability to disband and salvage units
9) lack of pillage abilities
10) vulnerability to attack (innability to provide strong defender cover)
11) loss of special abilities such as airdrop and am phib attack

Even though you may not agree with all the content or the approach, the greatest benefit from your existence on the planet would be obtained through providing input and suggestions to help focus and advance the discussion of issues.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by cracker
Try not to belittle other users or their approach to posting things. Focus on the issues if at all possible.

.....(snip)....

Even though you may not agree with all the content or the approach, the greatest benefit from your existence on the planet would be obtained through providing input and suggestions to help focus and advance the discussion of issues.

Do I smell hypocrisy?

If you would care to run a search on this forum for previous army discussions you would discover that Firaxis personnel have discussed many of these points in depth with respected board members and argued the case for each decision. An army has been deliberately made less effective in many respects to counter its one overwhelming advantage, namely attacking a defensive unit which has a strong odds shift in its favour. Because it has 12+hit points to spend in attacking it is far more likely to succeed in an assault role without loss than three or more separate units of the same type, especially now 1hp retreat is not so likely.

The army container is not designed to be universally superior to seperate units. If it fought as often, healed as fast, had multiple ZoC chances e.t.c. then the lucky acquisition of an early leader would place one player in an extremely advantageous position. Instead the army is a valuable tool for smashing a single strong defensive unit. Those without armies have to resort to heavy bombardment and luck to achieve the same result.

Personally I wish armies were as key to victory and as well implemented as they were in the Call to Power series. Unfortunately Firaxis thought differently. We just have to live with that.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by cracker
Try not to belittle other users or their approach to posting things. Focus on the issues if at all possible.

Your ZOC observation could be valuable if you decided to include two important details....

I'll take issue with anyone that characterizes design decisions as errors/flaws/bugs/whatever in the code. It is a down-right misrepresentation of fact. If you don't like the way a system is designed, that does not mean it is improperly coded based on a design specification. It means your opinion differs from those who designed the software. Too bad.

I agree with Grumbold that the changes you suggested would give an overwhelming advantage to the first civ lucky enough to get a Great Leader. The game would be unbalanced. Armies have one overwhelming advantage that negates whatever disadvantages you perceive: they can have up to 20hp.

[cracker]

I took a few turns to verify that armies in V1.21 will allow units that already have a Zone of Control (ZoC) to exercise that zone of control against passing Enemies.

I did this by setting up the 4 army gauntlet with enemy units in located in the center so that the enemy units had to pass by the armies for at least two movements.

The I loaded and played a number of versions using enemy warriors as the victims (targets).

With the Armies loaded with cavalry, we get ZoC engagements about 25% of the time in 10 enemy moves across 20 zones.

With the Armies loaded with archers, we get no ZoC engagements in the same number of engagements. Cannot say for absolute certain that there is no ZoC, but so far I have been unable to detect one with any units like archers, longbowmen, riflemen, or infantry

So it would seem that Armies do not interfer with whatever minimal ZoC engagements that occur, but they do not seem to confer a zone of control as stated in the editor functions released by Firaxis.

In verifying the Blitz mode feature, it does seem that units can atatck more than once if they ALL have movement points remaining. The only challenge in the implementation is that units in the army that are not used in an attack also have one movement point subtracted for every attack that is initiated. This means that an army of one movement units can never defeat multiple units in a single turn even if they army units are superior in strength and well within range.

This is not a debate about game design priorities. The Released version of the Firaxis code states that Armies confer a Zone of Control and Blitz mode.

[ALPHA WOLF 64]

Originally posted by cracker
This is not a debate about game design priorities. The Released version of the Firaxis code states that Armies confer a Zone of Control and Blitz mode.

But armies DO have both those features, just not in all cases. I agree that giving blitz and ZoC to unts just because they are in an army is incredibly unbalancing. In my last game, I had an archer. 2 barbarian attacks later it was an elite. The iroquis were already settling too close to me so I killed off the nearest city with the archer. I moved on a second city. Not only was this city taken but now I have a GL. (this was as the Americans and truly shocked me). By now I have 2 swordsmen that get added to the army. I finished off the Iroquis before 1000bc. Had this little army been given blitz unconditionally, I could have ruled the world very quickly. It just means you cant give benefits to units just by adding them to an army. Also realisticallly, armies move much slower than units so a fast moving unit would definitely lose some movement flexibility (see battle of the bulge). I'm not saying that your opinion of the game is wrong, but just that your view is not necessarily the view of everyone. There's a tradeoff between keeping units mobile or getting the additional punch of an army. Then again, an army of all mobile units, you dont lose the blitz ability. My armies are either offensive or defensive, rarely do I mix the 2.

[notyoueither]

re Blitz mode. Have you tried an Army with 3 or 4 Knights?

[Panag]

Originally posted by Venger
Cracker -

You have concisely reiterated my (now ancient) complaints about armies. But you didn't seem to include one of the biggies - the ability to either upgrade consituent units, or to replace/remove units as needed. The US still doesn't field Continental Soldiers in the army, we've upgraded...

Venger

hi ,

yep they do , in the reserve's , ....

have a nice day

[Venger]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Grumbold

Personally I wish armies were as key to victory and as well implemented as they were in the Call to Power series. Unfortunately Firaxis thought differently. We just have to live with that.

The CTP method is SO simple yet SO superior it makes my nuts ache to think how either inane or obstinate Firaxis was not to utilize something similar...

Venger