To FIRAXIS: Army Comparison

[Spiffor]

Thanks Mike ! Now we have a precise info !

[Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS]

Originally posted by Solver
Does what Mike said apply to PtW or the fourth Civ 3 patch?

Yes

[Jon Shafer]

*Shakes his head*
And people say Firaxis doesn't listen to us!
(That's not true, they just aim to be the bane of our gaming experience after listening to what we want. )

[cracker]

Thanks Mike B for the advance notice of a Fix that is really needed.

To Solver, your perception of the way the military advisor has used the strength ratings has been demonstrated to be not correct. When the Military AI thinks it is stronger, this leads to stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid^1000 wars that just make the game a joke. The tactical AI is smart enough to know that it cannot successfully attack three mech infantry fortified in a hill city by using 50 Cavalry and 50 Longbowmen, but the stupid Military AI declares war anyway because 3 is not as good as 100.

This will leave us with some bad habits to fix in our game play because I know that I have personally exploited this feature by using mass numbers of workers and lower grade units to bump up the military strength count. I deliberately leave saltpeter disconnected until I get cavalry discovered because I know it is cheaper to build lots of pikemen and horsemen and this will have a stronger effect on having the AIs respect me in the morning.

I did a very controlled experiment where I was playing China on Bill Chin's May Tournament map and I had about a 1.5 to 1 total unit count advantage over India. When I got to Replaceable Parts + Democracy + The Chinese industrial worker, I had my entire part of the content covered with railroads and decided that I did not need 50+ workers anymore.

As I joined the workers into my cities to expand the population I watched closely as the Military advisor reported Stronger-Stronger-Stronger- Average-Average-etc. This was in V1.21f without any modification and using Bill Chin's standard sized random map. The Mahatma's mood also soured progressively and by the time I turned all the workers into citizens, Ghandi was peeing across the border into my rivers.

The next turn Ghandi charged into my territory with about 30 riflemen and spearmen plus a few token elephants, selectively ignoring my 90+ Infantry and 30+ artillery as well as the average of 10+tanks and cruise missiles that I was cranking out in each turn.

I also have repeated examples of Montezuma attacking my pikemen and mounted warriors with bucket loads of jags.

Again I am so very pleased with the Firaxis responsiveness on fixing problems like this military power assessment snafu. It makes me wonder if these guys like Mike and Speedbump were around when the game was released in its incomplete form back in the Fall.

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Mike Breitkreutz FIRAXIS
It will also take into account the relative strengths of the individual units in your military (so a Modern Armor counts more than a Warrior). It now uses a calculation that's very similar to what the AI uses.

Thanks Mike! Good to know that he'll be of some use going forward. I still think that a "nice to have" feature would be to increment what the advisors know about other civs - better knowledge with embassy, best knowledge with spy

[Skanky Burns]

Nice thread!
Good to hear that the Military Advisor is getting better at his job, and not confusing those pesky civilians with military types.

[Panag]

Originally posted by Solver
Arrian is right, Soren said so, and so it is. An AI with 100 Cavalry won't attack you if you have 60 Moden Armor.

hi ,

the chance they can win would be like 2 percent , ....

have a nice day