Can I fire my shipbuilders?

[Sleestax]

The sea battles in CivIII are frustrating me to no end. It seems that unless I have an overwhelming superiority in a sea battle, I always lose them to the AI.

I lost 2 frigates to a friggen galleon in one game. I nearly lost a battleship to a frigate in another game (these were on warlord level).

On high levels it's worse. I can't think of a single naval victory when I have played on a difficulty higher than warlord.

Am I doing something wrong? Is the game borked? Or is it a combination of both?

[Colonel D.]

Civ 3 needs to bring back the combat system they used in Civ 2. In that game you not only had varying levels of hit points your units could absorb, but you also had varying numbers of attacks a given unit had in a given combat round.

Thus, if a battleship came upon a trireme in Civ 2, the trireme would have one shot with a very weak weapon for every three shots from a very powerful weapon in the battleship.

It was theoretically possible for the trieme to win, but the odds were astronomically against it.

Col D.

[Jaybe]

Sleestax, you are either (1) experiencing a bad run of luck, or (2) not focusing on your victories.

Yes, and I have had a tank repulsed (retreated) while I was attacking a spearman fortified in a town (which is almost the same as your BB vs. frigate). You have to remember that those "friggen galleons" are armed. At sea, just as on land, you really want to have numerical superiority, and a little luck.*

*What I have done is given all my 'modern' naval units "blitz" capability. This also enables them to bombard multiple times, and the AI also uses it.

[HazieDaVampire]

i wish units were part of a set weapons class, and armor class!
A cannon ball cant damage a battleship!
Their was a battle between two ironclads (Real life), and the two of them had cannons in their turret, they eventualy ran out off ammo cuz their cannon balls couldn't hurt eachother!

[Jaybe]

Hey! Wudda think, that a battleship unit is composed of just a single battleship??
I say NO, a battleship unit is a "heavy flotilla" or "heavy task force" composed of some battleships, with cruisers and destroyers.

When you are out of ammunition you lose combat capability, so you lose hit points.

[Arrian]

There are two solutions:

1) learn to use force concentration and bombardment to increase you odds of victory,

2) mod the game.

I use #1. I stack naval vessels... the first ship bombards the enemy ship, the second attacks it. I usually don't have offensive naval vessels until Destroyers, so my experience is with them and Battleships. I like the 2 destroyer/1 Battleship task force. The 2 destroyers bombard, the Battlewagon sinks things. It works well.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Sleestax, using your original example, losing 2 Frigates to a Galleon is like losing 2 Archers to a Spearmen... is that so surprising?

I do the same as Arrian. It works at lower levels too... Frigates bombard, then an Ironclad to sink things.

It's no different than using Arty and Cavs.

In general, you want overwhelming, and concentrated, force.

[Panzer]

In general, you want overwhelming, and concentrated, force.

Blitzkrieg!

Yesterday I experienced the much dreaded 'spearman-defeats-tank' scenario (well, it actually was an Impi, but hey, they're the same thing ). I toke note and obliterated the little sod with my next tank. It was the first time I've encoutered this and it waspretty funny to look at .

[Blake]

My most memorable "hmmm" combat was when an archer attacked a tank, forcing it to retreat. The concept is preposterous enough to be amusing.

Just remember, whenever your units lose to a vastly inferior military force, it is due to gross incompentence. Try imaging just how incompetent your troops would have to be. I find it fun.

[Non Flammable]

I've found that tweaking the modern units with slight HP upgrades(graded by era, max being +4 for the late modern age units) helps for more realistic combat results without being amazingly unbalanced.

Of course, thats a small step to fixing the problem. Slight att, cost, def, RoF, etc. etc. tweaks are the only way to truly fix some of the imbalances in the game. Do what works for you.

[notyoueither]

I finally lost a Tank to a Pikeman. Still no Spearman though. It will happen. The odds say it will. Just not yet.

/Edit. On topic. No, I have not noticed losing a lot of combats at sea where I had an advantage in equipment. Very bad luck for you.

[NeoStar]

Re: Can I fire my shipbuilders?

Originally posted by Sleestax
...On high levels it's worse. I can't think of a single naval victory when I have played on a difficulty higher than warlord...

Eh? I haven't noticed any of that-for me the only combat difference b/w chieften and deity is fighting with barbarians.

Maybe it is slightly modified, but I think it's just bad luck

[spy14]

I find that my ships lose out about 80% of the time to the same class of unit, regardless of whether they are attacking or defending. Maybe releases in differant countrys are tweaked slightly differantly?? That would explain why some of experience this and some dont. And I liked the Civ 2 system where the more modern units also got more shots

[Zachriel]

Bombard, bombard, bombard. God gave you gunpowder propelled projectiles for a reason.

[seano1]

Originally posted by Colonel D.
Civ 3 needs to bring back the combat system they used in Civ 2. In that game you not only had varying levels of hit points your units could absorb, but you also had varying numbers of attacks a given unit had in a given combat round.

Thus, if a battleship came upon a trireme in Civ 2, the trireme would have one shot with a very weak weapon for every three shots from a very powerful weapon in the battleship.

It was theoretically possible for the trieme to win, but the odds were astronomically against it.

Col D.

I remember a Murphy’s Rule about peasant militia being able to sink battleships in Civ1.

In the Civ2 manual, it said that hit points were deigned to make more advanced units more powerful. Now there used to represent experience, which isn’t bad, but nothing replaced that old balancing factor.